By quincy0191
Doctor Repulsor
Quick, name the hero with the highest winning percentage across both cycles of CiC in a minimum of ten games! Faster! C’mon, man…oh, Christ, it’s Doctor Repulsor, okay? The good Doctor had a somewhat unheralded breakout performance over the Carnage event, winning 69% of the 29 games in which he appeared. And while he was boosted by the top two teams in CiC, being played 15 times total by SynC and BMG, he still went five-for-nine against those teams.
In fact, check out the six players who picked up Repulsor more than once:
Poor CountCrapula at the bottom didn’t win either time Shrek is Love grabbed Doctor for him, but I think we’ll push that aside slightly. Everyone else did great. Sure, two or three games isn’t much of a track record, but collectively they’re pretty damned impressive. Flensmeister absolutely loves Repulsor, and one can see why, when he’s won seven of nine. Then again, his 476 GPM is actually the second-lowest average; ImbaBoy has played three games and averaged a whopping 521 GPM!
Let’s put that in perspective: 18 player-hero combinations have averaged over 500 GPM in at least two games. Four heroes appear more than once. Hag and Soulstealer account for two records each, with fUzi taking one of both (NoX’s Soulstealer and Flensmeister’s Hag are the other two). The other two have three appearances each, and are Moon Queen and Doctor Repulsor. Moon Queen is obvious, and fUzi shows up there again too. Doctor is less so.
How about some leaders? Setting the minimum at ten games, the highest GPM hero in CiC was…still Moon Queen. But Repulsor was second! He led in experience per minute, and was second in kills per game (to Chipper of all heroes).
What to Expect: The hard carry metagame hasn’t really been in vogue recently, but there seems to be an opening for Repulsor nonetheless. He has a significant advantage over his competition in his mid-game potential, and while he is vulnerable before level 6, he can immediately get active upon gaining his ult. Doctor Repulsor’s performance in the last tournament, especially among lower-tier teams and against heavyweights BMG and SynC, suggests he should be a more regular pick.
The Chipper
We just talked about how Chipper led all heroes in kills per game, not really someone you’d expect to find at the top of the leaderboard. Chipper’s been a very niche hero for a long time now, and yet he dominated when he actually showed up in CiC.
Of all the heroes with at least ten games played, Chipper has the highest discrepancy between winning percentage (66.7%) and use (12% of games). Part of this has to do with the fact that the only team that consistently picks him up is BMG; the monkeys have played Chipper 11 times, going 10-1, while no one else has grabbed him more than twice:
BMG no doubt have the squirrel working for them. Still, everyone except for Reason put in a solid performance shooting rockets, they just didn’t win as often in general. The kill/death scores are good, the GPMs are solid, and it’s fair to say that perhaps they didn’t win thanks to Chipper, but they didn’t lose because of him.
Surprisingly, Chipper seems to have some versatility. While he’s typically played as an initiator (m`ICKe, FuzzySloth, Xibbe, Kracke, and probusk combined for eight games), he can also be run as a carry (fUzi played five games) or even as a suicide (Jonassomfan played him five times, though not always as a suicide). fUzi’s Chipper was especially dangerous, going 5-0 with a 12.6/2.6/11 line, 516 GPM, and 652 XPM.
What to Expect: Chipper initially seems to suffer from a lack of a real stun, no getaway, an unimpressive slow, and general squishiness. While his rockets increase his lane presence, he’s extremely vulnerable to ganks. Yet suicide Chipper is a thing, which would suggest he’s got a little more survivability than expected. Chipper’s versatility in CiC, as well as his burst magic damage and potential to scale, indicate that we might be seeing a lot more of him, and not just in the hands of BMG.
Behemoth
Chipper is first on the list of win%-use%, second is Chronos, and third is Behemoth. The big lug went 9-6 over CiC, and unlike Chipper or Doctor Repulsor, didn’t really benefit from overuse by SynC or BMG. Willowkeeper tied SynC for the most games, with four each, followed by Reason’s three. And only Ogr and xCet lost more than they won, in just one game apiece.
The three teams that account for 10 of 15 games also had a distinct style. The majority of the time, they either used Behemoth in the trilane or as a jungler. The latter strategy is inexorably tied to willowkeeper, and they were really the first ones to start using it, but SynC tried it out as well and had success. As trilanes re-emerge, Behemoth’s powerful stun and block become extremely valuable when played right.
Unsurprisingly, he’s always played as a second support. In those 15 games, a total of 11 wards have been placed by the Behemoth player, and it’s usually in the hands of the typical jungle/second support player:
Zlapped is one of the few second support players that truly shares ward duty, and even he doesn’t average a high ward count. The obvious reason is that teams don’t want to burden Behemoth with buying wards when he could be rushing that critical Portal Key. The average GPM for Behe is therefore substantially higher than most supports, and the cow leads the way for all supports that have been played at least ten times.
What to Expect: Behemoth is a bit of a niche hero, and perhaps a risky pick due to his so-called need for farm. Most supports don’t come with substantial gold demands, and items they do pick up are more team-oriented (Astrolabe, Tablet of Command, Storm Spirit) than a Portal Key. Behe can of course use his PK to help teammates, but it’s unlikely he’ll see consistent play, especially in jungle lineups where he would be the primary support. But as the dual support metagame grows in popularity, he can find a spot as a member of a trilane and occasional jungler who ends up providing more initiation and teamfight potential than just about any other support.
HTS3 Preview - Heroes on the Decline
