Generally speaking, every patch brings with it a small handful of heroes that end up completely dominating the metagame and are either picked or banned almost without fail, causing the community to become sick and tired of seeing them all the time until the next patch comes along and nerfs those heroes. As a result, which hero qualifies for High-Tier Scrappy status largely depends on the current version.
- Io was detested amongst Western pro players for essentially being a necessary ban in most professional games. 6.79 took the hero out of favor temporarily when its Tether ability no longer stunned enemy units that crossed it. Instead it is a 100% movement and attack speed slow, which means heroes can still retaliate with spells and item abilities.
- Spirit Breaker during the 6.78 patch was broken in pubs because if his Charge connected, it was a guaranteed 500~ magical damage as well as many infuriating seconds of being stunned. However, after his 6.79 nerf (no longer being magic-immune while casting ''Nether Strike'', along with a reduced base attack speed), his win rate plummeted to manageable levels.
- Split pushing heroes in general get a lot of hate. Their presence on the enemy team makes difficult to pick fights, as doing so leaves a lane open to being pressured by these heroes, while not picking fights allows the enemy to farm items unimpeded, which these heroes tend to do very well.
- Tinker is a shining example. His high skill cap yet low skill floor and powerful scaling through items results from his deceptively simple reset button ultimate, granting him map-wide presence, continuous repositioning (even into the treelines) and strong creep clearing. Allowed one or two items, a greedy Tinker can proceed to starve the entire map and both teams of farm, amassing items until he can do such feats as continuously Hex an enemy, two-shot enemies with Ethereal Blade and Dagon, suicide to deny himself at a lighter penalty than normal death or defend nigh-indefinitely against base sieges, agonizingly stalling out games, as he is not as good as breaking enemy high ground himself. Finally, his March of the Machines, already powerful area denial, damaged through even Magic Immunity, allowing him to recover easily from bad starts by clearing Ancient creep camps. 6.82 introduced a slew of brutal nerfs: March no longer work on Spell Immune units (including Ancients), his kill combo was crippled with a higher mana cost on Dagon and Ethereal Blade changed to an evadable projectile. The result: his win rate dropped tremendously and he falls from one of the most contested heroes competitively to mostly ignored.
- Nature's Prophet: if you ever turn your back on a tower for a minute, you can be sure that he will teleport in and start applying pressure with a metric ton of treants. Not helped by AdmiralBulldog of Alliance making the hero not simply popular, but near ubiquitous in pub games. If you see a Prophet in a pub, he will go to the jungle, rush Hand of Midas, and then split push. He might go Orchid, Shadow Blade, Dagon or Necronomicon afterwards or use his ult well or poorly, but he will almost always jungle for his Midas regardless of how weak it makes his team's lanes.
- Lycan has two abilities to empower the damage output of units under his control, and can put them to very good use. Not only can he summon a pair of heavily-damaging if squishy wolves, but he'll almost certainly go on to grab a Necronomicon, adding more minions to his arsenal. The result is a hero that can demolish towers very quickly and put up a good fight against any hero that tries to stop him. After his heyday in 2013 (where he become the most banned hero on TI), his wolf HP was nerfed so he isn't ubiquitous anymore.
- There is perhaps no other hero more hated than Naga Siren. Her illusion from Mirror Image gives her massive split push potential, and allows her to farm at a ridiculous speed once she get her hands on a Radiance. Riptide gives her a solid farming and teamfight skill and enhances her split push even more. Ensnare is a disable that goes through BKB. And then you have her ridiculous ultimate, Song of the Siren which puts enemies to sleep for 7 seconds, effectively making her almost impossible to gank, able to set up teamfight combos, stop opponent from defending her push, AND isolate a BKB user. It can even be used to reliably steal Roshan because it doesn't affect him, forcing the enemy to watch helplessly as she waltzes in, takes off the last sliver of Roshan's health, and then teleports away with the Aegis in tow. With the introduction of Octarine Core, Naga is even more annoying now. Thanks to Radiance, her illusions can also benefit the spell lifesteal, making them deceptively tanky. They also can push and farm super quickly with Radiance burn and Rip Tide. Expect to see 50+ minutes game everytime Naga is picked.
- Naga also achieved infamy in tournament play for having a degenerate combo with Dark Seer. Back in the day, Vacuum could pull invulnerable units, meaning that Naga could use Song of the Siren to sleep the enemy team while Dark Seer pulls them all together, making them easy targets for any sort of AOE followup. The combo was infamous for being incredibly powerful and nigh-impossible to counter, to the point where most teams preferred to simply ban Naga altogether. Unsurprisingly, patch 6.75 made Vacuum unable to affect invulnerable units.
- Phantom Lancer is a hero that can quickly create an army of illusions to push lanes. Keeper of the Light can teleport any of his allies to his current location. Now put two and two together and realize what this means for your unattended towers. PL's underrated Aghanim's upgrade make his Spirit Lance bounce to nearby enemies, which in turn creates even more illusions, making this item a must pick.
- Lone Druid joined the ranks of despised split-pushers in 7.00. Said patch introduced the talent system, and Lone Druid happened to hit the jackpot: his talents include large bonuses to his damage and range, a huge cooldown reduction on his main disable, and most damningly, a 50-second reduction on his respawn timer. Most split-pushers at least stay dead for a while if caught and killed, giving their opponents some breathing room; Lone Druid, on the other hand, will be back to pushing unattended lanes in as little as half a minute at a point in the game where other heroes' respawn timers are three times as long. IceFrog listened to the community and nerfed almost all of Lone Druid's pertinent talents in 7.02. With 7.06 he also removes all respawn talents.
- When 6.76 was released, two heroes were quickly declared overpowered in pubs: Drow Ranger and Centaur Warrunner, the latter being ported in the same patch that is released in. Drow Ranger is hated because her precision aura can toggle every other ranged units into inheriting her attack bonus from the skill at a global range, resulting in an incredibly easy push into the enemy base just by existing no thanks to her immense Agility as a result of her ultimate passive. Centaur on the other hand, has his Ultimate Stampede giving every single one of his allies global maximum attack speed that ministuns the enemy upon stampeding into them with an incredibly low cooldown for Ultimate standards, resulting in one of the highest winrate that has ever been recorded on a hero (67%). No surprise that Icefrog quickly nerfed them, the former by making Precision Aura a toggled based ability on a limited radius with cooldown, and the latter having his ultimate turned into a slow with limited damage and a reasonable cooldown.
- During the 6.81 era, "meta" heroes such as Death Prophet, Shadow Shaman, and Razor got a lot of hate thanks to their ability to push really fast, especially when backed up by a fast Mekansm. However, the most hated of them all is by far Faceless Void. Commonly played as an initiator, Faceless Void's ultimate Chronosphere creates an area that stuns everyone touching it (allies included) except himself for several seconds while increasing his damage against enemies disabled by it and granting free movement inside it. Its low cooldown compared to other high-impact AoE initiation ultimates coupled with the rest of his Magic Immunity-piercing, damage-ignoring, mobility-granting kit makes Faceless Void a terror to oppose all throughout the game while scaling extremely well into the lategame with hard disables from Chronosphere and his passive chance to stun on attack. Void could thrive even in the offlane because of his high survivability yet low demand for items before becoming effective, only needing Power Treads, Mask of Madness and enough of his skills leveled to place proper Chronospheres and dominate fights.
- During the 6.83 era, two heroes were widely hated by the players after receiving substantial buffs: Sniper and Troll Warlord. The former received a significant buff to Shrapnel, becoming the most played hero in the game to the point of exceeding even Pudge (who had previously monopolized the slot) due to now possessing a spammable, long-range slow and damage over time, making him a good high ground defender and attacker (which means a lot due to the significant Comeback Mechanic then-present in the meta), and an obnoxious laugh that frustrates even the most hardcore players. The latter, after a bug fix to his fervor (Fervor now starts stacking immediately, whereas it previously only started stacking after 1 attack) along with an increased attack speed cap, suddenly became a highly contested hero in both pub and competitive games, due to having an ultimate that buffs every hero, a reliable slow, an area blind, making him a Master of All that can demolish towers like nobody's business and manfight the likes of Huskar and Ursa. All in all, players rejoiced when both heroes got nerfed (The former has his Shrapnel skillset nerfed while the latter has his ultimate's duration reduced and his Melee form no longer gives extra damage) in 6.84 making them much more manageable in pubs as well as reducing presence in the competitive scene.
- Juggernaut become the go-to carry in the 7.00 era with his super strong talent tree: attack speed, move speed, also increasing his damage potential overall. With the support of Ogre Magi that boost his attack and move speed even more, also Magnus with his RP and Empower, expect to see a Total Party Kill with just a click of Omnislash. The 7.07 talent reworks made Juggernaut much less obscene by removing a lot of his staple DPS talents.
- Monkey King. He introduces a new gameplay aspect with the Tree Dance, making him a super effective scout that is very hard to catch. It doesn't help that there are only a select few tree-destroying abilities and items in the game, leading to a lot of Character Select Forcing if you want to counter him effectively. His kit also makes him a ridiculously good pubstomper, as pubs generally underestimate Jingu Mastery until he gets four hits off, gains a huge amount of bonus damage, and bashes their heads in. Combined with Tree Dance giving him a powerful escape and initiation mechanism, and a Monkey King in a disorganized pub can snowball until he simply wipes entire teams with Boundless Strike and Wukong's Command.
- When 7.00 introduced various talents that gave heroes new playstyles, perhaps the biggest unintended playstyle was the bear-less/sniper Lone Druid. With a level 10 talent that increased his attack range by 200 and a 15 talent that granted him +65 damage, Lone Druid hat the potential to attack from almsot 900 units away. On top of being able to buff his attack speed with Rabid and still having the Spirit Bear to act as both a meat shield and tower shredder, Lone Druid was a menace in pubs for a time. A few small nerfs to his talents, notably the loss of bonus damage at level 15, would relegate the build to fringe use, but it became all but gone after Rabid was replaced with Spirit Link - reemphasizing the original mechanic of the hero.
- Drow Ranger became an absolute terror in the 7.21 era with her reworked Marksmanship, which gives her attacks a substantial chance to instantly kill creeps and pierce through heroes' armor, with a side of bonus damage. She subsequently went to being picked as a semi-carry whose primary contribution is Precision Aura synergy to a solo carry that can slaughter nearly any other Agility carry in the game, who tend to have the durability of a napkin without their armor. Furthermore, the ability to flash-farm Ancients made it incredibly easy for Drow to begin snowballing. Patch 7.22 brought Drow back into line by making Marksmanship only pierce base armor and no longer instantly kill Ancients.
- Tiny became notorious after the conclusion of The International 2021. During patch 7.07, Tiny lost Craggy Exterior and its Aghanim Scepter upgrade. In return, he gained various buffs that would eventually set the stage for its balancing for years to come, namely Tree Grab, essentially its Aghanim Scepter upgrade as a basic skill, and Status Resistance from Grow. While Tree Grab started as an underwhelming ability, 7.07b would give Tiny a massive cooldown reduction for Tree Grab, significantly buffing Tiny's early game and eventually scaling into a Lightning Bruiser that can shrug off disables like it was nothing. Eventually, Tiny would get its Status Resistance and Movement speed buff buff reduced or moved into its Talents tree. 7.22 gave him a new Aghanim's Scepter upgrade that adds the Tree Volley ability, letting Tiny bombard an area with his attack damage with a bonus Good Bad Bug of activating Echo Saber's slow, further improving Tiny's AOE nuking ability. Patch 7.23 would experiment with letting Tiny have a permanent Tree Grab, until it was removed in 7.27b and reintroduced in 7.29 as a Talent. Between the initial Tree Grab buff, and The International 2021, Tiny has been on-and-off a meta hero as a carry, aggressive Mid, offlaner, and position 4 support due to his versatile skillset with a mix of Magical and Physical burst damage and utility, making him one of the more contested hero in both The International 2018 and 2019. The International 2021 would then highlight his carrying capability to an absurd degree, with the permanent Tree Grab as a 20 mins Aghanim's Shard, and a Tree Grab talent at level 15 that increases Tree Grab's attack damage by 30% instead of 15% as said in the game. Tiny would play around hitting the 20 minutes power spike, after which he could tear apart the entire enemy team by himself with his massive damage output. In particular, the combo of Tiny + Lycan was feared in The International 2021, with the latter's Wolf Bite giving Tiny Critical Strike, Lifesteal, Night Vision, and a permanent haste.
- Amusingly during The International 2021, there was a narrated segment covering why Tiny is such a strong hero during the tournament, and said segment neglected to mention that Tiny's Level 15 Talent was bugged to be twice as good compared to the in game description. This led to confusion following patch 7.30 after The International, where the talent is written as being buffed to 20%, which is still worse than the version at The International.
- As of patch 7.31, Aghanim's Shard can now be acquired at the 15-minute mark. This turns out to be a massive buff for Tiny, since its 20 minutes timing is now 5 minutes faster and 7.31 itself also reworked Tree Grab into a flat damage increase. In response to this, patch 7.32 would attempt to deliberately gut Tiny's carry potential by changing the attack speed reduction from Grow from a flat reduction into a multiplicative reduction. Tiny ended up being one of the top mid heroes of the patch, due to various indirect buffs on Tree Volley being able to benefit from Tree Grab. To wit, going into The International 2022, Tiny is the single most contested hero in The International of all time.
- Where do we begin with Marci? When Marci was enabled in Captain's Mode by 7.31d, her skillset initially had her stun on her Dispose (an ability where she picks up a unit and throws it behind her, damaging the unit if its an enemy and any enemy units within the landing area) and her slow on Rebound (an ability which lets her jump on an ally unit to jump towards a further landing area), while Sidekick (an ability which gives her and an ally bonus damage and attack speed) and Unleash (her ultimate which gives her insane attack speed for a specific number of attacks, similar to Ursa's Overpower, but with each flurry disarming her for a short duration before allowing her to attack again) remained mostly the same. Marci had two core builds at the time: First was Aether Lens and Blink Dagger, allowing her to initiate without the usage of Rebound and also utilizing Dispose's pretty ridiculous cast range with Lens, whether as a save or as a repositioning tool against enemies; Second was BKB and Basher, which mostly synergizes with the properties of Unleash. Overall, Marci in this state was relatively strong, and was highly contested in the pro leagues leading up to and including the Arlington Major. In an attempt to curb her power, Valve swapped the stun and slow aspects of Dispose and Rebound in 7.32, while also decreasing both abilities' landing areas. That being said, 7.32b, the patch that the entirety of The International 2022 would end up playing on, buffed Marci a little bit by adding back some of the lost landing radius on Rebound and reducing the downtime of Unleash's attack flurries.
- This attempt ended up ineffective and, as it would turn out, outright backfiring on Valve's intentions with the hero. While this switch did end up killing the Aether Lens-Blink Dagger item build, swapping the stun aspect of Dispose onto Rebound ended up turning Rebound into a scarily effective initiation tool, as it actually gives Marci control onto where she wants to land the stun unlike Dispose. As a result, most of the time that Marci gets played, she can go straight towards a BKB instead for a strong midgame timing. The Regional Qualifiers for TI showed the ineffectiveness of the change, as Marci still became a highly contested hero at 84% across all regions, and at the Last Chance Qualifiers, showed how much it backfired as she became contested in every single game played, with 17 picks and an astonishing 107 bans, and not only that, became the first hero since Leshrac at TI5 to only be first-phase contested at a TI...also in every single game up to that point. In the main tournament, as of the end of Playoffs Day 4, Marci currently stands as the only hero to have a plus-90 percent contest rate across the group stage and playoffs. In summary, Valve attempted to give Marci the 'Earth Spirit treatment' explanation and it backfired hard, making her almost if not outright the meta-defining hero at TI11.
- Wraith Pact, Wraith Pact, WRAITH PACT. In order to give more viability to Vladimir's Offering aside from upgrading it to Helm of the Overlord (which was primarily for heroes like Lycan and Beastmaster), this item was released in 7.31 as a second item Vlad's Offering can build into. What does it do? On release, it has an active which summons a slow-moving ward that has an aura that provides 25% total damage reduction (as long as the damage source is from enemy heroes) and 25 damage per second to enemies. Damage reduction items are definitely a thing in Dota, what with Magic Resistance items like Pipe of Insight and Armor items like Crimson Guard, but never has there been an item that gives outright total damage reduction like this, including pure damage. And then in 7.31c, the item got buffed to provide 30 dps and 30% damage reduction. The result was almost instantaneous. Due to its relatively cheap cost for an upgraded item (4,000 gold) and the inherent benefits provided by Vlad's Offering aura, even supports can be able to buy it if given the space and time. If Wraith Pact gets purchased relatively early on, then it's almost a guaranteed win for whoever builds it first, almost forcing the game into a race of who builds the item earlier. This was felt in the pro scene as well: OG in ESL One Stockholm (where 7.31c was played on), and more significantly, Tundra Esports at TI11 (played on 7.32, where there were no nerfs towards Wraith Pact at all) both utilized the item to their respective wins. The item was so busted that Nine, Tundra's midlaner, said it himself that he wants it gone.
To add further credence to just how ridiculous the item is, Noxville tallied up the winrate of Wraith Pact at TI11 as of Playoffs Day 4. In the 108 games where only one team bought Wraith Pact, that team had a record of a staggering 73-35. Pretty much everyone either wants it nerfed to the ground or just gone. The playerbase's wishes were answered in 7.33, where Wraith Pact was removed from the game. - The 7.33 change to Medusa was initially met with skepticism due to having 0 starting strength and 0 growth to boot, meaning she had a paltry 120 hit points. However, Mana Shield was also changed to a starting scaled ability and have a 98% damage reduction in exchange for a higher damage-to-mana loss conversion. Her win rate initially tanked following 7.33, falling almost 7%, but buffs in 7.33b which altered how much mana Mystic Snake restored and gave her illusions the benefit of mana shield saw her win rate surge over 16%. Between her and her illusions being difficult to kill, Split Shot's damage penalty was reduced so she had both bulk and the damage to clean up entire teams if left uncontested. Until 7.33c she enjoyed an average win rate close to 60% across all brackets, but even with the nerfs in that patch she's still enjoying an abnormally high win rate.
- 7.33 turned Vanguard into a particularly prominent sight, particularly in the hands of offlaners. Not only were its components made much cheaper and thus much easier to build early (if done early enough, the damage block and health regen made an offlaner basically immune to harassment), but Octarine Core was also reworked to require Soul Booster and Perseverance - two items that can be made using Vanguard's components, meaning that players can buy Vanguard, bully their lane with it, and then when the damage block falls off, disassemble it to rush out Octarine Core; pair that with Arcane Boots, and you have half an Octarine Core already, letting Vanguard users seamlessly transition into the later game. Not to mention the Vanguard can be kept and used for Crimson Guard, or disassembled to build Pipe of Insight, if the team needed one. Because of just how ubiquitous and versatile it was, Vanguard took a nerf in 7.33d to make it less obnoxious in the laning phase. Said patch also tweaked Octarine Core's recipe to require two Void Stones instead of Perseverance, meaning that a disassembled Vanguard now only provides one component toward it instead of two.
