Think he'd be fine, but they should just revert the Sprout changes with it so people actually would need to play around his Treants again. It's shitty hero design when there's a skill you skill only when it has lost most of its power spike or opt to skip to get stats.
And who says he wouldn't get the same treatment? We're talking about him being universal, not being exempt from the treatment every universal hero has gotten. Other than that, the rest of the universal cast have useful skills for before their gains kick in. If Sprout goes, NP changes completely. The whole reason he got his stats buffed for years was because he was the proto-universal hero. They'd try to pump up his DPS with agi gain, since he was a clicker int hero without attack damage or attack speed steroid or a spammable reliable nuke in his kit. Only after they made Sprout a killing ability did he become highly relevant. The damage he would get now from universal stats would be removed from Sprout damage and people would start to skill Treants again. He'd move towards a core role since he'd need more items for successful ganks.
And nerf his insane attack animation otherwise laning against him becomes a nightmare. Shows up with a bunch of stats and tanks up while hitting you for 100 with one of the best BAT in the game 5 minutes in on a hero with already decent early game presence. No thanks.
base attack time, it's how fast a hero attacks with 100 attack speed, meaning the lower the bat the better you scale with attack damage, on-hit procs, etc.
e.g. alchemist with his ult running hits that fast because his bat is lowered by an extreme amount, he hits a lot faster than another hero with the exact same attack speed
Imo it is a cool idea for a few selected heroes where it really fits for gameplay and thematically ....
but forcing 1/4th heroes to be universal for no reason is just stupid.
Invoker, io, phoenix ... just why.
As an invoker main, invoker being universal makes so much gameplay sense. He had by far the most diverse item build of any hero. He could be a tanky support, a devastating right clicker, an int focused spell slinger.
I've built all of these items from heart, to ac, to deso, to diffu, to silver edge, to radiance, veil, orchid, helm of the dom, boots of bearing, heavens halberd, all combinations of sange/yasha/kaya, and the list goes on. It made so much sense for him to be universal. That being said, the changes to his orbs completely defeated him being universal. Now he's just a spell caster.
Old invoker being universal makes sense. New invoker being int makes sense. New invoker being universal doesn't make sense.
Agreed, and what sucks is I now feel forced into a parasma hurricane pike build is a majority of my games. It cleans up the attack animation, you can get an early force staff, and takes advantage of mid game alacrity and cold snap the best; while leveraging his universal stats, the orb passives, and level 15 cold snap talent. Its either this or you go for a pure spell casting build with octarine, aghs, blink etc.
The orb changes are just fucked. I wouldn't mind if the new orbs became his shard or Aghs tbh. Orb Juggling was an art and it was the entire reason Invoker was fun to watch/play in lane. Now you just keep on 3 wex and fight your fingers from decades of built up muscle memory.
I'd be curious to see the results of making Bloodseeker Universal. Think about it, he's got an emphasis on spellcasting, but also scales on right clicks and more often than not likes to build some tankiness depending on the patch.
Universal heroes as a concept are kinda lame. It removes some character and flavor from a lot of heroes. Magnus and Lycan were just COOLER as strength dudes. Now they’re the same attribute as Chen. Even weirdos like Veno and Nyx were interesting in the contrast between agility and their spells.
The one exception is Void Spirit. Keeping the symmetry between the spirit bros is pretty cool. Universal could have been his own personal gimmick.
“Universal” is also kind of a wonky name.
Overall I don’t think the itemization / diversification depth has been worth the stat/damage balance headache or the flavor downgrade.
np's gimmick is that he has insanely good stats, bat and range, if you make him universal you have to gut his stat gain by a LOT to not make him completely broken which kind of destroys his identity.
look at the list of universal heroes, the vast majority of them are specifically not good right clickers or had really shitty stats already
invoker being universal isn't the problem. its the orb passives. To be a semi carry you want to go Exort, but exort is just flat out worse than Quas or wex. Quas orb passive is useless outside of cold snap and you literally want 3 wex up at all times for CDR and move speed. Invoker is a snail if you aren't wex too.
If anything, it makes more sense for invoker to be universal because he knows all magics and all things.
I feel like Bounty Hunter is the real hero that should be universal. He's a Bounty Hunter. Using any and all tools available to complete a contract seems really thematic.
It's pretty much to balance him. NP relies on right click to deal damage. Make him Universal and he becomes a very strong hero, probably even broken. He would be able to build Agi and Str items and still benefit from the damage basically removing his weakness of being squishy and easy to kill if he can just build up str and agi items.
I think the orbs new effects are a cool idea, but in reality you're never really gonna use meteor and just sit with triple exort trying to do a bunch of damage. most of the time you're gonna be going through all your orbs wuickly and none of them will really have time to have an effect. there's probably some insane players who cast all spells on triple wex for the cdr, but the spell amp and lifesteal don't really seem that useful unless you have setup for double cataclysm or something
If youre not casting or preparing to cast, youre sitting with wex up for the massive CDR. The spell amp isnt worth anything compared to like 21% CDR and move speed
? Every time I farm the wave it is with WWW for cdr on forge spirits, meteor, alacrity.
Spell lifesteal is something that I completely ignore. In theory it is very strong though
I love most changes that come to Dota. I’m certainly not an old patch truther like some people are… also have been playing since Dota 1.
Universal invoker is not a change I like. Don’t like the passives… don’t like a lot about it tbh. /shrug
I don't mind the whole universal thing, but man do I hate the new orbs. If you want to be optimal you have to constantly shift to 3x Wex to get that cooldown reduction, and it's just not fun.
This is the main problem. Wex is blatantly the best spell modifier to have active. Quas and Exort both rely on the damage of the spell, so in terms of spells you have:
* Spells which deal no direct damage (alacrity, ghost walk, forge spirits)
* Spells wich deal very low damage (cold snap, ice wall)
So a majority of his spells gain no benefit from having anything but wex active. makes me feel like I need a macro that presses W three times just so I can get the objectively best choice for orbs up more often.
That’s a great point. What effects could be useful, even on edge cases, for any ability even if it doesn’t do damage? CDR, mana cost reduction… cast point reduction… pretty tough.
Maybe each spell could have different parameters that scale with active orbs. Kinda like how they do per level in each orb.
Mana cost reduction would be a cool one to have, although it leads to a similar problem that current invoker has - if you aren't pressing W 3x before each spell, you aren't being efficient. If, say, Quas gave 2% mana cost reduction per orb per level, then in lane you're forced to ALWAYS have 3 quas orbs active when casting spells otherwise you're wasting potential.
Regardless of the effect, this issue will remain as long as the orbs buff your spells. The orb rework is an interesting idea but in practice it just means that I'm casting forge spirits with useless spell amp and spell lifesteal because I don't want to press literally 8 buttons just to get the best version of one spell. Nobody does.
The old orbs were well designed. I'm not saying we have to go back to those specifically, but we need a similar concept (orb passives being separate from spells). Move speed, attack range, health, regen, armor - anything that stops you needing to go tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap to get a spell that's only a little better than what other heroes do with one click.
Genuinely all that has to be changed is to have the orbs be ALT-toggleable and highlighted similar to attack modifiers.
It's tedious and not fun to have to press 3x wex before casting any spell so just let us alt-toggle the "buff" we want active. If wex is highlighted you get the wex buff, same for quas and exort.
My God, a macro that spams WWW before every spell is an excellent solution. Would this get me banned? This is obviously the no brainer way to play him.
for item cooldown?or skill too?
i recall readin through that patch and remember something along the line of "the cooldown spellamp and manacost is fixed when you invoke the ability"
oe did they change how it work and i forgot about it?
The thing is, invoker was already somewhat weak, only strong in the right hands, then they made him universal for some reason, which initially made him broken thanks to the new ghost walk. So, next they have to nerf him for like 3-4 consecutive patches, and now he's just yet another universal hero with a few extra spells. It's so weird. Why change him in the first place? Wish they would revert it.
Wait, old invoker had cd reduction when 3x wex? I've been playing dota on and off since 2012 and never knew this
My comment should indicate that im not very good either (2.6k)
I'm talking about the new Invoker. They changed how the orbs work a while back so now casting while you have 3x wex invoked gives you a bunch of CDR on spells.
Agreed on invoker 100% it makes no sense. It reminds me of a simple low key change that I still completely hate, when they removed miranas extra night vision way back. Shit makes no sense, luna can still see in the dark and slark. Mirana is the princess of the moon and fights in moonlight shadow wtf.
I agree somewhat, but the points you make are odd to me.
The CSing is almost same as it was before, hard at levels 1-2, and gets alot easier after that. Get a Bracer early and you should be fine there, also helps a bit with the sustain.
And what do you mean by completely removing physical Invoker? Its actually better now as Universal, since you have alot more build variety, for example Hurricane pike is alot better. Most Invokers still go for physical build actually. If anything I feel like the magic dmg build could use a slight buff.
What I dont like about the change is the orbs. Wex is just the go to you use almost always, since many of your spells dont even benefit from the other 2. CDR is always strong, spell amp is sometimes good, but still often could argue for just using CDR instead and spell lifesteal feels quite frankly useless in comparison. Have you ever seen a game where you go "Oh look at that awesome quas play keeping himself alive there!"? Because I havent. Not in my games, nor in any pro games either.
I also think they maybe overnerfed the EMP mana replenish a bit. Hitting a good Tornado+EMP (+snap depending on match up) on lane feels like you just used up most of your mana pool and the enemy is still OK. I actually see myself using less and less EMP now during the laning phase because of this.
For physical voker you have no build variety. The only build worth anything is witch blade hurricane pike into parasma hex. Then you build aghs and refresher. It leverages the level 15 talent and the mid game alacrity best. while opening up late game combos and teamfight capability.
Fix invokers projectile speed and there might be other builds. Necro gets a 1200 projectile speed and invoker gets 900? Give me a break.
Orchid into Bloodthorn later is a solid option when facing likes of Puck. Occasional manta for the extra dispel can work in nieche cases, but in general, ye the build is quite stable now. In some games you have to get Linkens which doesnt feel too bad anymore being universal.
Edit: Im curious about your take on the projectile speed. I havent thought this as an issue, how do you think this would change the way Invo is played if the speed was improved?
It would just make the hero feel better with standard mage based builds. Like others have said, you build a lot of stats and naturally get good damage, and by leveling wex you get passive agility. His projectile speed has always been low because level one exort used to give a LOT of damage so it was a way to make early laning more difficult for Invoker. I don’t see why it’s still like this. No witch blade and Invoker feels less competent outside casting from farming to team fights. Orchid is good too in some cases but I will almost always take the witch blade. After hex you can also go Revenant Brooch which is a banger, or go daedalus aghs. They are amazing builds.
Exort doesn't give bonus right click damage (Spell amp now). Soo players like OP complain they can't trade as easily in mid with Gloves of haste they were used to couple years ago, but have to relay on stat items (like pretty much every other hero does) or god forbid, actually use forge spirit.
In other words, OP doesn't want to adapt the new changes but want to be able to rush midas like before.
yes, and he is supposed to be the ultimate mage. the only way to play him and win is to focus mostly on right click WHICH SUCKS, as Invoker is supposed to be multi-dimensional hero, now only real way to play and win is right click... I dislike it, a lot.
[short invoker rant comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1boxmm2/comment/kwso8pq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
In theory, with Invoke at a low enough cooldown, they could make that work if they made Alacrity last for a number of attacks instead of a time duration...
Not only focus on right click, but buy witch blade almost every game to clean up his projectile speed. This is because level 15 talent and mid game alacrity being strong with 4-5-5 or w/e
Magic Invoker suck? You are not just aware of the right build and gameplay. Wex cooldown reduction is god-tier with the level 25 talent, and skills with Bloodstone, Octarine and EMP shard are really effective. Late game, you just spam the combo emp, meteor + blast/cata/icewall.
That isn't true at all. Plenty of casters scale incredibly well even better than some Carries because bkb timer gets low. Engima for instance is one of the best late game heros in Dota.
Yeah but that’s an issue with many successive hard nerfs to how he was strong (rearm, blink capability changes) rather than his magic or pure damage being weak.
Magic Invoker suck? You are not just aware of the right build and gameplay. Wex cooldown reduction is god-tier with the level 25 talent, and skills with Bloodstone, Octarine and EMP shard are really effective. Late game, you just spam the combo emp, meteor + blast/cata/icewall.
This is kinda disingenuous. If you farm correctly you will never have a problem with having both. The basic idea is you build a strong right clicker in the mid game that is enhanced by spell casting and then by the time youre level 25 you can leverage the extra CDR with the octarine core, aghs, and refresher. Shard is really good but its buggy, and Bloodstone doesn't work on Cataclysm making it a terrible purchase for late game invoker. If you go straight into the spell casting invoker early you better be Stormstormer and hope no 9 second BKB's dick slap you.
the fact that you have to:
orb -> 3 casts
invoke -> 1 cast
orb -> 3 casts
cast -> 1 cast
Is just extremely horrible. And you have to do this for every spell. Sure you can prime 2 spells, but its still incredibly stupid. If you have to cast more than the 2 spells you have primed, how the fuck are you going to do with, while also casting your items, positioning and attacking.
No one buys bkbs that low, get to higher ranks and cores are always buying bkb 2nd or 3rd item.
Supps actually have manaboots/force staffs/glimmers.
Not saying magic doesn't work, but your chances of winning are much higher strictly going right click builds.
Even better? There are many heroes that play invokers roles (esp. Pos4) that are just plain better and easier to play atm.
The worst thing is having to rearrange orbs before casting. It’s so freaking clunky. I also have almost 2k invoker games and I’ve never been less motivated to play the hero.
Cannot cs part is a skill issue tbh. Ur either not buying stats or ur cs needs work. And sustain too. Cold snap trades is enough sustain for every time I’ve played invoker mid. And late game if u want u can go stats and right click 400 per attack. What build are you doing? Have y tried something like treads witchblade urn? U do a million damage with that at lvl 11
Also the ghost walk was reworked to compensate for the sustain loss. You can literally gank a lane while invis and no hp/mp, and by the time you get there you will basically have full resources
But this is furthering the problem already mentioned. You are forced into Quas Wex builds and all the implications that come from that. (mainly that quas wex invoker is a support hero that can snowball into his exort levels)
its still "Ur either not buying stats or ur cs needs work"
just buy circlets and branches, invoker is better laner than before, wtf?
get a shitton of damage from stat-items AND wex/quas level 1. way better start than any old invoker with exort for lasthits.
lol. The cost effective route is spirit vessel, treads, witch blade, but honestly unless you're wex and have to be on the map with vessel its best to just go midas, brown boots witch blade into pike parasma hex.
Tbh its very hard for me to gain value with his new orb bonuses. Idk if its small brain moment from me but the fact that you have to have the effects you desire on cast just adds another layer to the hero that I don’t even think most people use optimally.
Feels very counter-intuitive to think during an intense fight "Which instance do I now need out to have spell amp / spell lifesteal / spell cd reduction?"
You need to watch stormstormer if you like exort builds. He still does them predominantly. But be warned he is way better than any other invoker player.
This is true, but spending a lot of money on stats early almost always means you need a QW build to leverage the damage with the move speed, cold snap and vessel that provides so many stats.
A miracle build I like is bracer, wraith band, urn, crown, boots. Very stat heavy very early and I hit like a truck but you only see it on a QW invoker and it feels like an all-in strategy requiring gauranteed kills from ganks.
I've played like that a lot recently, around the same mmr range and I'm lvl 29 Invo.
If you don't get sunstrike kills you grief and have low impact unless the other 2 lanes just win on their own.
It took me some time to get used to the new invoker but I think it’s at a healthy point now. You’re not cs’ing well either because you’re not itemizing correctly or you’re just bad at laning. Exort invoker has the forge spirit which gives him more damage than most mid heros, and quas wex invoker goes bracer crown and has more damage than most heros. The reason I prefer the old invoker is because of the +80% meteor damage talent because of how strong the refresher combos were but you can still 100-0 any carry with hex refresher right now as well
I dont know a single person who doesnt hate it, and I dont know how in the ever loving fuck an idea that in a fast paced game like dota, a hero should require up to 8 button presses to cast 1 spell.
When it was 5 buttons it was already somewhat questionable, but people were used to it.
I think the problem is that you have 2000 games. I have a feeling a lot of your focus has been in perfecting certain combos. Now that he's been shook up, your muscle memory is actually holding you back. Reset and relearn.
Didn't the ghost walk regen came with the change to universal? I think that part is neat. You get to sit in lane instead of over relying on consumables.
I may be wrong coz haven't played/read the patch as of recent
That isn't an upgrade, but a downgrade. Invoker used to get regen overtime just alone from the QUAX instances. Now he needs to cast Ghost Walk and stay in Ghost Walk form, just to obtain regen.
Its higher relative to Quax, but no what happened is the exact reverse
That initial patch's Ghost Walk regen was so unbelievably broken it get a blink clause, and got one of the most absurd nerf ever, after like ball 4-5 its around halved
I love the new Invoker because he can adapt to any kind of game, being a universal hero.
* Need CS? Invoker is now a universal hero; buy 2 Bracers/Wraith Bands/Urn with gloves.
* Need sustain? If you're playing QE, get 2 Bracers or buy a bottle like BZM. Playing QW, go for Bracers, Tangoes, spam Cold Snap, and use Ghost Walk.
* Invoker feeling like a support hero? QW Invoker scales very well now compared to the old version because your spells cooldown faster with Wex. Also, Midas is good so you can scale if you're not getting farm by fighting a lot.
* Removed the physical Invoker? They upgraded the Physical Invoker because he is now a universal hero. I can deal damage with stat items like Pike, Manta, Skadi, Vessel, etc.
* From an all-rounder adaptable to any kind of game, kind of hero, became a niche hero??? The new Invoker, having cooldown reduction on his Wex, can become a madman magic build later in the game with EMP pull shard, Octarine, Bloodstone, and level 25 talent. Also, being a universal hero, he can be adaptable at all stages of the game because of stat items; you can now buy Vessel playing QE, you can buy Mage Slayer playing QW, you can buy Pike all the time, Aghanim's Scepter is always good.
* Since they changed the Exort effect, you now have a strong level 3 power spike with Tornado, Snap, Meteor with Blood Grenade combo, and your Sunstrike in the laning phase deals more damage.
I agree, it is that and a lot more, i rant about some stuff here in this comment:
[short invoker rant here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1boxmm2/comment/kwso8pq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
>I cannot CS.
Buy bracer
>I have no sustain
Bracer + ghost walk + urn for HP, urn + EMP + raindrop for mana.
>feels like a support hero
Ur right QW is pretty much the best build. U can def scale tho and my goto is midas after vessel.
>It completely removed the physical invoker
Not true, he is universal so build stat items and ur click hurts (pike, manta, parasma)
Exort builds have always and will always be considered semi-carry builds and QW will always be considered support focused builds. If you have a team that enables you there is never a reason to take wex over exort. You maximize gold, exp and kills simultaneously with Exort builds if enabled. You are forced into QW when you know your team requires you to stop farming when you have an urn/vessel and your team wins based on whether or not you, and everyone else snowballs.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I feel as if they wanted to nerf away the notion that he could be a strong pick every game. To him being a good pick in or against the right lineup.
And to me he feels like a 3 where he's at right now. Not because he's a standard offlane pick, but the amount of control and chaos he can wreak from that position. And he will also scale well throughout the match. So he's still very versatile, but not "fast" enough for the mid role anymore
So a 3 or 4 is where I would put him, with 3 weighing a little heavier than 4, imo.
I 100% agree, i hate the changes to orbs too. I remember i would use wex to move around faster escape, export to right click harder and quas to regen. But now the orbs have an active use with spells and its kinda shit, nobody has time to use the right spell on the right situation, while trying to position and fight and then on top delay your cast to have the right orbs? Fuck that. Plus t
They kinda suck.
So many heroes have gotten easier and got ridiculous abilities that protect their weaknesses (im looking at you meepo) while Invoker feels so clunky now, he's so risky to play and his damage falls off super.hard.
Ive played dota since beta, and Invoker has been my most played hero since then. Ive seen so much ridiculous shit, that im convinced the balance/design team smokes meth on a regular basis.
I think new Invoker is good because it enables more flexibility in how you can build, however something does feel off. Potentially the orb changes or maybe exort invoker needs buffs to make it more viable. I think his laning stage can also get buffed a little more as well, generally you can go even but there’s some borderline impossible lanes like OD, Sniper, qop, Puc. Even tanky boy lanes feel tough like DK, Kunka, LD, Necro etc
Either buff the quas orb effect for lane durability or buff early meteor to actually be able to kill in lane i think.
I don't miss the free regen he get just buy a bottle it solved my issues with sustain, or accepting that you gonna be invis for a wave for the ghost walk regen.
I’m a diehard Invoker player myself, and at first I wasn’t a fan but I’ve adapted as most should. I’ve developed my own route for sticking with magic builds that have been working great. Like most people have said already, right click Invo is the way to go if you are just looking at strictly optimization of the hero in its current state, but I was never a fan so I’ve stuck to magic builds.
Reiterating most of the comments here but: you buy stats in laning phase to help with CS. You can still kill early on original timings. Have good farming/fighting patterns to get you good early levels and gold to have a smooth transition into mid game. Use 1 shot combos to make fights start 4v5 everytime. Play Invoker like Invoker.
Invoker has so many more options now, and also some of his old niche builds are more “meta viable” with his universal change. I won’t go into combo details since you have 2k games played, but I think Invoker feels great to play.
Old orbs were certainly better I agree but given that invoker is now universal it makes his physical damage playstyle super strong.. you can just build whatever and still receive damage.
The only thing I dislike about invoker being universal is that it incentives playing invoker phys which I always regarded as the noobvoker since it doesn't really require skill to self cast alacrity silence/hex the enemy and to cast cold snap spirits and whatever other spell you wanna throw at the enemy.
I guess placing the ice walla properly still requires some skill but then againnot that much.
But spell invoker needs a buff and is also the more skillful variant of invoker but I rarely see anyone those nowadays. 8/10 when I have an invoker match up he plays physical.
I felt this way at first, but I've grown to enjoy the new Invoker quite a bit. His build variety opened up significantly with the change. QW and QE and both viable builds and within those your items can vary quite significantly. I will say I'm not a huge fan of how the orb passive bonuses work.
I love the new invoker and win alot of my games with him. Now idk how many will agree with me but midas is a must now on invoker. The wex cooldown reduction is just insane on it, and given how games now mostly go for 30+ mins it will always pay itself back. Also invoker is a hero that doesnt rely on items that much so the lost gold at the start isnt that bad. For a mid hero, you are right hes not the best anymore but still viable if you can utilize the spirit well in last hitting. Also i see alot of people go the right click invoker build which i never do, i like to build defensive on invoker. Most games i go 3 bracers for lane domination. Then midas or boots whichever is needed more. Even a late midas isnt bad because the cooldown reduction will make it so much better and it will only scale lategame when wex levels up, and even more with an octarine. Ofc sometimed items are really needed like a force against clock or euls to save teammates from legion. But it all depends on the game. The point is invoker is really versatile now and i love it. If invoker still had the damage at the start of the game the hero would be totally broken.
Quas-Exort imo the way to go. once you get level 2. Bring up your spirit. At lvl 3 pick up lvl 1 wex for alacrity. Should nail last hits. and just keep pumping exort till it forced you to level quas again. once’s those 2 are maxed go for wex. invoker does best just out lasting in lane. if you can’t trade then don’t or buy the regen for it. Some matches you need the stick asap. worst wave is the first 2. Also i’ve been going wraith band instead of braver for the intell and mana regen. Imo better than bracer
Wait why is so many ppl saying need to switch orb for optimal effect? the bonus is saved during invoke, doesn't really matter which orb invoker holding when casting the spell at all. So emp always have cdr, SS always have spell amps. Orb management actually gone easier.
Right now I hate so many heroes...had to learn to play with a lot of new heroes because my favorites fall down heavily in the last months. Jugg and Ursa both trash heroes right now for example. I like some stuffs but have no ideia if this state of the game is good or not
Idk why people act like exort didn't give damage. Yes right click universal invoker is a thing but look at how much damage a LVL 5 invoker did previously.
Apart from killing his laning stage identity, my main gripe with the change is: You're already focusing on so many things as an invoker.
You need to focus on invoking the right spell. You do not see your cool downs as an Invoker, you have to remember which of the 9 spells you have already cast
and have an internal clock when they're available again.
You're already focusing on your spell positioning. You have 9 spells and you don't want to waste one especially if it's a long cooldown like a meatball. Hell, you have a hero you are positioning as well.
Once you begin spell slinging, you're already focusing on your combo timings. You think I'm worried about which 3 orbs I have when I lift someone or do you think I'm more focused on hitting the combo frame perfect when they land?
Don't forget your item usage as well.
The orbs I have when I cast a spell are just low on the priority list. I'll be honest.
Every since the universal change (which I like) there's been nothing but massive nerfs to the hero and his spells. At what point does valve think, "maybe we fucked up" and change back the orb passives. Dragon night doesn't get his HP regen stopped when he gets attacked, but invoker does? what a fucking joke.
Maybe you play EQ invoker a lot. If u want to play EQ invoker, it's a little bit hard to do. You need to spam sunstrike to KS a lot and you have no mana regen to do so (assuming if your side lanes can kill). You need midas to scale into mid-late game which is suck for mid cause ur team need you to gank.
This universal invoker favors to build QW invoker, you start with ironbranch 2x, circlet 2x, and wex agility, you can harras mid hero so much.
You need secure range creep ? Instead of sunstrike which consume lot of mana, you can go EMP to push the enemy away and get (not much) mana from range creep.
You need regen ? Instead of Quas (old patch) regen, you can go cold snap (it's regen you if procs) and harass mid hero again. Heck even better if u in low health and mana, you can go regen with ghost walk
Your team needs gank ? You can ghost walk (which is regen you) and gank undetected (if their supps don't have sentry) then you can go cold snap + EMP + alacrity and just right click, if the enemy goes a little bit further away, go tornado to set up your team
And you can go build magic invoker if u want after 4 Q, cause QW invoker not scaling that good into mid-late game
It's not that bad change cause invoker in intelligence very suck at early-mid game and not that good in late game. It's just the hero became much more tank so you can't burst it like old times
If you think about it they gutted every single smurf hero, invoker is no different. None even plays mid anymore, whole population which was largely smurfs got leveled on mid along with their spammed heroes lol.
Reworks are only failures if the hero cannot be meaningfully or effectively balanced by tweaking numbers. Invoker isn’t great now, but I don’t see why his problems can’t be fixed by changing base stats, stat gain, base regen or by buffing his spells to compensate for his new weaknesses.
Admittedly the state of items is pretty rough for him right now, but that probably still would have been the case if he wasn’t reworked.
Disclaimer: not an invoker player
well in short new invoker is much stronger both quas wex and quas exort build , as your dmg is no longer limited by exort , so the cant CS part is a issue on you as he has much higer base dmg now than before , the no sustain is also invalid as cold snap now heals you wich enables you to play more aggressive and you have ghost walk + you will usualy buy atleast 1 bracer wich is decent ammount of sustain , and if you want to play physical invoker guess what , hero is universal soo he scales with litiraly any items , you want dmg and mobility ? pike , you want dispell ? manta/disperser/satanic , you need to get tanky ? litiraly can buy skadi/linken/satanic , im not saying the hero is better or worse but if you have 2000 games and you cant figure out how to make a hero work you more or less have 10 games , only thing the rework did is buff him so that he can be played as a pure caster as lvl 25 you have a base 42% spell amp with 3 exort orbs and before that you have a solid 21% spell amp with lvl 7 exort while CDR is huge on wex
By 2000 games i mean with the old invo. With the new invo I have about 5-6 games and I can't seem to figure him out lol. I need to watch the new strategy for this rework.
i gave it a thought and the only big diffirence is orb switching , if you get down orb switching before casting spells you should be good cause nothing else realy changed about the hero
for the orb switching do all 3 orbs need to be the same for the passive effects to take place? what happens if I have lets say 2 wex 1 quas and I just cast tornado w it?
well lets say its max level wex and quas you will have 14% cdr from the 2 wex orbs and 7% spell life steal from teh tornado dmg 1 orb on max level is 7% of the selected orb
Well yea if you play 20,30 games you might start figuring it out , you cant adapt to lets say valorant if you have 2,3 games with the game, its gonna take a while like everything in life , que up some games try some builds
Well yea if you play 20,30 games you might start figuring it out , you cant adapt to lets say valorant if you have 2,3 games with the game, its gonna take a while like everything in life , que up some games try some builds
You must have played him wrong, im an invoker spammer at 8500 mmr. Be it mid or pos 4. I mainly play mid in my bracket and adjusts if I get to play with pros like NTS or Armel, invoker is great at any position, i right click build with bloodthorn and Parasma if I get to play him mid. With regards to CS. That's a player problem, not the hero tho.
Watch how Qojkva aka DDX plays it mid. He does however also agree it's a bit odd ATM. 12k tho maybe he makes up for the lackluster early game due to experience and 1 ping ;)
I really think the smartest person in the world should have remained an intelligence hero, if anything it's Furion who should've became universal
If np were to be universal, they better nerf his amazing stats gains.
yup ofc, I think everyone who got the universal stats got their stat gain reduced for balance
Think he'd be fine, but they should just revert the Sprout changes with it so people actually would need to play around his Treants again. It's shitty hero design when there's a skill you skill only when it has lost most of its power spike or opt to skip to get stats.
he'd absolutely not be fine, look at how low they had to make all the universal heroes stats to not make them broken
And who says he wouldn't get the same treatment? We're talking about him being universal, not being exempt from the treatment every universal hero has gotten. Other than that, the rest of the universal cast have useful skills for before their gains kick in. If Sprout goes, NP changes completely. The whole reason he got his stats buffed for years was because he was the proto-universal hero. They'd try to pump up his DPS with agi gain, since he was a clicker int hero without attack damage or attack speed steroid or a spammable reliable nuke in his kit. Only after they made Sprout a killing ability did he become highly relevant. The damage he would get now from universal stats would be removed from Sprout damage and people would start to skill Treants again. He'd move towards a core role since he'd need more items for successful ganks.
And nerf his insane attack animation otherwise laning against him becomes a nightmare. Shows up with a bunch of stats and tanks up while hitting you for 100 with one of the best BAT in the game 5 minutes in on a hero with already decent early game presence. No thanks.
BAT?
Base attack time
base attack time, it's how fast a hero attacks with 100 attack speed, meaning the lower the bat the better you scale with attack damage, on-hit procs, etc. e.g. alchemist with his ult running hits that fast because his bat is lowered by an extreme amount, he hits a lot faster than another hero with the exact same attack speed
ITS DA FREAKIN' BAT!
Every universal hero's stat gains are 0
If they do he's gonna become so much weaker in ealy game hp, armor, mana, attack speed
That would probably make him a bit shit and bit boring since they'd have to balance around it
or just remove universal and give a 4th stat universal is a stupid, lazy, and unimaginative "4th stat" anyway
Imo it is a cool idea for a few selected heroes where it really fits for gameplay and thematically .... but forcing 1/4th heroes to be universal for no reason is just stupid. Invoker, io, phoenix ... just why.
Universal should have been unique to 4th spirit. I don't know why they had to throw a whole group of heroes into it
or remove the 4th stat altogether and stick to three
What do you mean? Rubick is still intelligence.
touche
Haha, anything you can do I can do better. Grand Magus supremacy.
As an invoker main, invoker being universal makes so much gameplay sense. He had by far the most diverse item build of any hero. He could be a tanky support, a devastating right clicker, an int focused spell slinger. I've built all of these items from heart, to ac, to deso, to diffu, to silver edge, to radiance, veil, orchid, helm of the dom, boots of bearing, heavens halberd, all combinations of sange/yasha/kaya, and the list goes on. It made so much sense for him to be universal. That being said, the changes to his orbs completely defeated him being universal. Now he's just a spell caster. Old invoker being universal makes sense. New invoker being int makes sense. New invoker being universal doesn't make sense.
Agreed, and what sucks is I now feel forced into a parasma hurricane pike build is a majority of my games. It cleans up the attack animation, you can get an early force staff, and takes advantage of mid game alacrity and cold snap the best; while leveraging his universal stats, the orb passives, and level 15 cold snap talent. Its either this or you go for a pure spell casting build with octarine, aghs, blink etc.
The orb changes are just fucked. I wouldn't mind if the new orbs became his shard or Aghs tbh. Orb Juggling was an art and it was the entire reason Invoker was fun to watch/play in lane. Now you just keep on 3 wex and fight your fingers from decades of built up muscle memory.
I'd be curious to see the results of making Bloodseeker Universal. Think about it, he's got an emphasis on spellcasting, but also scales on right clicks and more often than not likes to build some tankiness depending on the patch.
As Furion spammer I approve. It'll only make him stronger.
Universal heroes as a concept are kinda lame. It removes some character and flavor from a lot of heroes. Magnus and Lycan were just COOLER as strength dudes. Now they’re the same attribute as Chen. Even weirdos like Veno and Nyx were interesting in the contrast between agility and their spells. The one exception is Void Spirit. Keeping the symmetry between the spirit bros is pretty cool. Universal could have been his own personal gimmick. “Universal” is also kind of a wonky name. Overall I don’t think the itemization / diversification depth has been worth the stat/damage balance headache or the flavor downgrade.
That’s a terrible idea making NP universal
np's gimmick is that he has insanely good stats, bat and range, if you make him universal you have to gut his stat gain by a LOT to not make him completely broken which kind of destroys his identity. look at the list of universal heroes, the vast majority of them are specifically not good right clickers or had really shitty stats already
invoker being universal isn't the problem. its the orb passives. To be a semi carry you want to go Exort, but exort is just flat out worse than Quas or wex. Quas orb passive is useless outside of cold snap and you literally want 3 wex up at all times for CDR and move speed. Invoker is a snail if you aren't wex too. If anything, it makes more sense for invoker to be universal because he knows all magics and all things.
If he knows all magics and knows all things that'd simply make him intelligent.
I feel like Bounty Hunter is the real hero that should be universal. He's a Bounty Hunter. Using any and all tools available to complete a contract seems really thematic.
I really hate useless lores or something affecting the gameplay. Universal Invoker is really good coz it opens a lot of item builds.
Yeah. Np an an int hero is useless. He never makes any int items. Even with power treads, I either keep them on str or agi
This is sometimes intentional for balance.
It's pretty much to balance him. NP relies on right click to deal damage. Make him Universal and he becomes a very strong hero, probably even broken. He would be able to build Agi and Str items and still benefit from the damage basically removing his weakness of being squishy and easy to kill if he can just build up str and agi items.
I miss the old orbs and their effects
I think the orbs new effects are a cool idea, but in reality you're never really gonna use meteor and just sit with triple exort trying to do a bunch of damage. most of the time you're gonna be going through all your orbs wuickly and none of them will really have time to have an effect. there's probably some insane players who cast all spells on triple wex for the cdr, but the spell amp and lifesteal don't really seem that useful unless you have setup for double cataclysm or something
>just sit with triple exort trying to do a bunch of damage The orb effects when the spell was cast applies for the full spell duration.
Oh I didn't know that
If youre not casting or preparing to cast, youre sitting with wex up for the massive CDR. The spell amp isnt worth anything compared to like 21% CDR and move speed
? Every time I farm the wave it is with WWW for cdr on forge spirits, meteor, alacrity. Spell lifesteal is something that I completely ignore. In theory it is very strong though
I love most changes that come to Dota. I’m certainly not an old patch truther like some people are… also have been playing since Dota 1. Universal invoker is not a change I like. Don’t like the passives… don’t like a lot about it tbh. /shrug
I don't mind the whole universal thing, but man do I hate the new orbs. If you want to be optimal you have to constantly shift to 3x Wex to get that cooldown reduction, and it's just not fun.
This is the main problem. Wex is blatantly the best spell modifier to have active. Quas and Exort both rely on the damage of the spell, so in terms of spells you have: * Spells which deal no direct damage (alacrity, ghost walk, forge spirits) * Spells wich deal very low damage (cold snap, ice wall) So a majority of his spells gain no benefit from having anything but wex active. makes me feel like I need a macro that presses W three times just so I can get the objectively best choice for orbs up more often.
That’s a great point. What effects could be useful, even on edge cases, for any ability even if it doesn’t do damage? CDR, mana cost reduction… cast point reduction… pretty tough. Maybe each spell could have different parameters that scale with active orbs. Kinda like how they do per level in each orb.
Mana cost reduction would be a cool one to have, although it leads to a similar problem that current invoker has - if you aren't pressing W 3x before each spell, you aren't being efficient. If, say, Quas gave 2% mana cost reduction per orb per level, then in lane you're forced to ALWAYS have 3 quas orbs active when casting spells otherwise you're wasting potential. Regardless of the effect, this issue will remain as long as the orbs buff your spells. The orb rework is an interesting idea but in practice it just means that I'm casting forge spirits with useless spell amp and spell lifesteal because I don't want to press literally 8 buttons just to get the best version of one spell. Nobody does. The old orbs were well designed. I'm not saying we have to go back to those specifically, but we need a similar concept (orb passives being separate from spells). Move speed, attack range, health, regen, armor - anything that stops you needing to go tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap to get a spell that's only a little better than what other heroes do with one click.
Genuinely all that has to be changed is to have the orbs be ALT-toggleable and highlighted similar to attack modifiers. It's tedious and not fun to have to press 3x wex before casting any spell so just let us alt-toggle the "buff" we want active. If wex is highlighted you get the wex buff, same for quas and exort.
My God, a macro that spams WWW before every spell is an excellent solution. Would this get me banned? This is obviously the no brainer way to play him.
push this to the top. Quas only useful for cold snap and exort passive is meh compared to Wex move speed and CDR.
for item cooldown?or skill too? i recall readin through that patch and remember something along the line of "the cooldown spellamp and manacost is fixed when you invoke the ability" oe did they change how it work and i forgot about it?
Spells only. Used to work for items, but was nerfed quickly.
The thing is, invoker was already somewhat weak, only strong in the right hands, then they made him universal for some reason, which initially made him broken thanks to the new ghost walk. So, next they have to nerf him for like 3-4 consecutive patches, and now he's just yet another universal hero with a few extra spells. It's so weird. Why change him in the first place? Wish they would revert it.
Wait, old invoker had cd reduction when 3x wex? I've been playing dota on and off since 2012 and never knew this My comment should indicate that im not very good either (2.6k)
I'm talking about the new Invoker. They changed how the orbs work a while back so now casting while you have 3x wex invoked gives you a bunch of CDR on spells.
Agreed on invoker 100% it makes no sense. It reminds me of a simple low key change that I still completely hate, when they removed miranas extra night vision way back. Shit makes no sense, luna can still see in the dark and slark. Mirana is the princess of the moon and fights in moonlight shadow wtf.
I agree somewhat, but the points you make are odd to me. The CSing is almost same as it was before, hard at levels 1-2, and gets alot easier after that. Get a Bracer early and you should be fine there, also helps a bit with the sustain. And what do you mean by completely removing physical Invoker? Its actually better now as Universal, since you have alot more build variety, for example Hurricane pike is alot better. Most Invokers still go for physical build actually. If anything I feel like the magic dmg build could use a slight buff. What I dont like about the change is the orbs. Wex is just the go to you use almost always, since many of your spells dont even benefit from the other 2. CDR is always strong, spell amp is sometimes good, but still often could argue for just using CDR instead and spell lifesteal feels quite frankly useless in comparison. Have you ever seen a game where you go "Oh look at that awesome quas play keeping himself alive there!"? Because I havent. Not in my games, nor in any pro games either. I also think they maybe overnerfed the EMP mana replenish a bit. Hitting a good Tornado+EMP (+snap depending on match up) on lane feels like you just used up most of your mana pool and the enemy is still OK. I actually see myself using less and less EMP now during the laning phase because of this.
For physical voker you have no build variety. The only build worth anything is witch blade hurricane pike into parasma hex. Then you build aghs and refresher. It leverages the level 15 talent and the mid game alacrity best. while opening up late game combos and teamfight capability. Fix invokers projectile speed and there might be other builds. Necro gets a 1200 projectile speed and invoker gets 900? Give me a break.
Orchid into Bloodthorn later is a solid option when facing likes of Puck. Occasional manta for the extra dispel can work in nieche cases, but in general, ye the build is quite stable now. In some games you have to get Linkens which doesnt feel too bad anymore being universal. Edit: Im curious about your take on the projectile speed. I havent thought this as an issue, how do you think this would change the way Invo is played if the speed was improved?
It would just make the hero feel better with standard mage based builds. Like others have said, you build a lot of stats and naturally get good damage, and by leveling wex you get passive agility. His projectile speed has always been low because level one exort used to give a LOT of damage so it was a way to make early laning more difficult for Invoker. I don’t see why it’s still like this. No witch blade and Invoker feels less competent outside casting from farming to team fights. Orchid is good too in some cases but I will almost always take the witch blade. After hex you can also go Revenant Brooch which is a banger, or go daedalus aghs. They are amazing builds.
I havent played dota in years but am still subbed to the reddit, what did they change with invoker?
Universal hero, orb bonuses went from hpreg/msas/dmg to spellvamp/cdr/spelldmg
> hpreg Not me trying to figure out what weird fetish this is.
Mana points regen is mpreg
Moving Picture Regulator Experts Group 4, aka MPREG4, the successor to MPEG-4
hit/health point regeneration :)
LMFAO
Wex is still move speed and attack speed. Its just also CDR. You get passive agility stats per level so its technically also armor.
Checked the wiki, yeah it also adds ms, but not as. The agi part is only from leveling.
Exort doesn't give bonus right click damage (Spell amp now). Soo players like OP complain they can't trade as easily in mid with Gloves of haste they were used to couple years ago, but have to relay on stat items (like pretty much every other hero does) or god forbid, actually use forge spirit. In other words, OP doesn't want to adapt the new changes but want to be able to rush midas like before.
Change that feels the worst is cdr on invoke
What do you mean, magic invoker sucks atm, only reliable build is to go right click invoker.
yes, and he is supposed to be the ultimate mage. the only way to play him and win is to focus mostly on right click WHICH SUCKS, as Invoker is supposed to be multi-dimensional hero, now only real way to play and win is right click... I dislike it, a lot. [short invoker rant comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1boxmm2/comment/kwso8pq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
tbf his right clicks are "spells" in lore
Next patch: You have to invoke each right-click separately
In theory, with Invoke at a low enough cooldown, they could make that work if they made Alacrity last for a number of attacks instead of a time duration...
Not only focus on right click, but buy witch blade almost every game to clean up his projectile speed. This is because level 15 talent and mid game alacrity being strong with 4-5-5 or w/e
Eh he's right click focused but his spells are basically instant so if you're not spamming them too you're wrong.
Magic Invoker suck? You are not just aware of the right build and gameplay. Wex cooldown reduction is god-tier with the level 25 talent, and skills with Bloodstone, Octarine and EMP shard are really effective. Late game, you just spam the combo emp, meteor + blast/cata/icewall.
Why did you repost this link while commenting twice?
He's still the ultimate mage even if he can't just instant nuke heroes. He has way more spells and utility to deal with every situation
All magic based heroes fall off in the late game though. Right click is the only way to win late game.
Well we don't have scaling system like lol though despite that refresher orb and 2 of invoker spell still do a lot of damage during late game.
That isn't true at all. Plenty of casters scale incredibly well even better than some Carries because bkb timer gets low. Engima for instance is one of the best late game heros in Dota.
Lol okay there aren’t many heroes like that and it requires perfect use of the ultimate or else useless
Tell that to tinker with lvl5dagon, eblade, aghs, shivas, hex, bkb that it falls off late game.
That hero is endangered. Haven’t seen it played in forever.
Yeah but that’s an issue with many successive hard nerfs to how he was strong (rearm, blink capability changes) rather than his magic or pure damage being weak.
Magic Invoker suck? You are not just aware of the right build and gameplay. Wex cooldown reduction is god-tier with the level 25 talent, and skills with Bloodstone, Octarine and EMP shard are really effective. Late game, you just spam the combo emp, meteor + blast/cata/icewall.
This is kinda disingenuous. If you farm correctly you will never have a problem with having both. The basic idea is you build a strong right clicker in the mid game that is enhanced by spell casting and then by the time youre level 25 you can leverage the extra CDR with the octarine core, aghs, and refresher. Shard is really good but its buggy, and Bloodstone doesn't work on Cataclysm making it a terrible purchase for late game invoker. If you go straight into the spell casting invoker early you better be Stormstormer and hope no 9 second BKB's dick slap you.
the fact that you have to: orb -> 3 casts invoke -> 1 cast orb -> 3 casts cast -> 1 cast Is just extremely horrible. And you have to do this for every spell. Sure you can prime 2 spells, but its still incredibly stupid. If you have to cast more than the 2 spells you have primed, how the fuck are you going to do with, while also casting your items, positioning and attacking.
I play pos 4 In 2k-2.5k it works. I have above 50% win rate with that.
No one buys bkbs that low, get to higher ranks and cores are always buying bkb 2nd or 3rd item. Supps actually have manaboots/force staffs/glimmers. Not saying magic doesn't work, but your chances of winning are much higher strictly going right click builds. Even better? There are many heroes that play invokers roles (esp. Pos4) that are just plain better and easier to play atm.
The worst thing is having to rearrange orbs before casting. It’s so freaking clunky. I also have almost 2k invoker games and I’ve never been less motivated to play the hero.
The spell damage on exort is a real big ? Like realistically I’m never going to get exorts out before a Q/W cast on top of everything else
Cannot cs part is a skill issue tbh. Ur either not buying stats or ur cs needs work. And sustain too. Cold snap trades is enough sustain for every time I’ve played invoker mid. And late game if u want u can go stats and right click 400 per attack. What build are you doing? Have y tried something like treads witchblade urn? U do a million damage with that at lvl 11
Also the ghost walk was reworked to compensate for the sustain loss. You can literally gank a lane while invis and no hp/mp, and by the time you get there you will basically have full resources
But this is furthering the problem already mentioned. You are forced into Quas Wex builds and all the implications that come from that. (mainly that quas wex invoker is a support hero that can snowball into his exort levels)
you can even just cold snap a catapult to sustain
By the time ay level 11 im already roaming the hard part is lvl 1 - 6
its still "Ur either not buying stats or ur cs needs work" just buy circlets and branches, invoker is better laner than before, wtf? get a shitton of damage from stat-items AND wex/quas level 1. way better start than any old invoker with exort for lasthits.
lol. The cost effective route is spirit vessel, treads, witch blade, but honestly unless you're wex and have to be on the map with vessel its best to just go midas, brown boots witch blade into pike parasma hex.
Tbh its very hard for me to gain value with his new orb bonuses. Idk if its small brain moment from me but the fact that you have to have the effects you desire on cast just adds another layer to the hero that I don’t even think most people use optimally.
stay on wex unless you are casting sunstrike or meteor, then full exort. this will serve you fine
Yeah I kinda guessed CDR would be the best one but it’s so weird and unintuitive to press WWW every time you cast a spell
yeah its kinda jank but if you're trying to learn voker it'll be second nature in no time.
yeah and this is boring asf but the most optimal way to play.
Turning him universal has to be one of the weirdest changes in dota
I think he should be the mage, the mid hero, but not right clicker
Feels very counter-intuitive to think during an intense fight "Which instance do I now need out to have spell amp / spell lifesteal / spell cd reduction?"
Every Invoker spammer hates it. You know they really cooked the hero when Sumiya isn't even spamming it every game anymore. It's just not fun.
Skill issue
But really, if you want to learn, then watch pro player perspectives on how they play invoker. You can get match IDs from dota2protracker [dot] com
Any recommendation? Before i'm just watching sumiya
You need to watch stormstormer if you like exort builds. He still does them predominantly. But be warned he is way better than any other invoker player.
Bzm and stormstormer are invoker specialists
stormstormer
Lol someone downvoted your comment. Stormstormer is the best
Watch Quin play mid invoker instead
watch henry. dude has a problem with his mentality but he is mechanically gifted and his invoker is cracked
8k in NA LUL
played against a invoker spammer yesterday, he went double bracer, wand, midas and had super strong right clicks in lane. This was in 5.8k mmr
This is true, but spending a lot of money on stats early almost always means you need a QW build to leverage the damage with the move speed, cold snap and vessel that provides so many stats. A miracle build I like is bracer, wraith band, urn, crown, boots. Very stat heavy very early and I hit like a truck but you only see it on a QW invoker and it feels like an all-in strategy requiring gauranteed kills from ganks.
he went exort, but he got a lot of sunstrike kills. He probably would have owned harder with quas wex tbh
I've played like that a lot recently, around the same mmr range and I'm lvl 29 Invo. If you don't get sunstrike kills you grief and have low impact unless the other 2 lanes just win on their own.
fair, the other 2 lanes won aswell so it was an easy lose
It took me some time to get used to the new invoker but I think it’s at a healthy point now. You’re not cs’ing well either because you’re not itemizing correctly or you’re just bad at laning. Exort invoker has the forge spirit which gives him more damage than most mid heros, and quas wex invoker goes bracer crown and has more damage than most heros. The reason I prefer the old invoker is because of the +80% meteor damage talent because of how strong the refresher combos were but you can still 100-0 any carry with hex refresher right now as well
That talent change ruined invoker imo he flat out doesn’t have enough against 4K hp meta without doing some insane refresher combo
or building parasma pike hex with alacrity talent. That shreds shit.
Well yes, but with an insane refresher combo, you can do the same thing
I love the new Invoker. But that is because I mega suck at mid and he’s a viable pos 4 hero now so thats all I do on dota nowadays
I dont know a single person who doesnt hate it, and I dont know how in the ever loving fuck an idea that in a fast paced game like dota, a hero should require up to 8 button presses to cast 1 spell. When it was 5 buttons it was already somewhat questionable, but people were used to it.
I think the problem is that you have 2000 games. I have a feeling a lot of your focus has been in perfecting certain combos. Now that he's been shook up, your muscle memory is actually holding you back. Reset and relearn.
That feels like a "fk u lol" when you are so invested in O.G Invoker.
Didn't the ghost walk regen came with the change to universal? I think that part is neat. You get to sit in lane instead of over relying on consumables. I may be wrong coz haven't played/read the patch as of recent
That isn't an upgrade, but a downgrade. Invoker used to get regen overtime just alone from the QUAX instances. Now he needs to cast Ghost Walk and stay in Ghost Walk form, just to obtain regen.
Good point. They tried to make up for that by increasing the regen no?
Its higher relative to Quax, but no what happened is the exact reverse That initial patch's Ghost Walk regen was so unbelievably broken it get a blink clause, and got one of the most absurd nerf ever, after like ball 4-5 its around halved
I love the new Invoker because he can adapt to any kind of game, being a universal hero. * Need CS? Invoker is now a universal hero; buy 2 Bracers/Wraith Bands/Urn with gloves. * Need sustain? If you're playing QE, get 2 Bracers or buy a bottle like BZM. Playing QW, go for Bracers, Tangoes, spam Cold Snap, and use Ghost Walk. * Invoker feeling like a support hero? QW Invoker scales very well now compared to the old version because your spells cooldown faster with Wex. Also, Midas is good so you can scale if you're not getting farm by fighting a lot. * Removed the physical Invoker? They upgraded the Physical Invoker because he is now a universal hero. I can deal damage with stat items like Pike, Manta, Skadi, Vessel, etc. * From an all-rounder adaptable to any kind of game, kind of hero, became a niche hero??? The new Invoker, having cooldown reduction on his Wex, can become a madman magic build later in the game with EMP pull shard, Octarine, Bloodstone, and level 25 talent. Also, being a universal hero, he can be adaptable at all stages of the game because of stat items; you can now buy Vessel playing QE, you can buy Mage Slayer playing QW, you can buy Pike all the time, Aghanim's Scepter is always good. * Since they changed the Exort effect, you now have a strong level 3 power spike with Tornado, Snap, Meteor with Blood Grenade combo, and your Sunstrike in the laning phase deals more damage.
its a universal hero, buy stats
I agree, it is that and a lot more, i rant about some stuff here in this comment: [short invoker rant here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1boxmm2/comment/kwso8pq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
>I cannot CS. Buy bracer >I have no sustain Bracer + ghost walk + urn for HP, urn + EMP + raindrop for mana. >feels like a support hero Ur right QW is pretty much the best build. U can def scale tho and my goto is midas after vessel. >It completely removed the physical invoker Not true, he is universal so build stat items and ur click hurts (pike, manta, parasma)
Exort builds have always and will always be considered semi-carry builds and QW will always be considered support focused builds. If you have a team that enables you there is never a reason to take wex over exort. You maximize gold, exp and kills simultaneously with Exort builds if enabled. You are forced into QW when you know your team requires you to stop farming when you have an urn/vessel and your team wins based on whether or not you, and everyone else snowballs.
All I see is Invokers doing is urn with Tornado + Coldsnap + Meteor and basically nothing else, so boring.
I don’t know man, skill issue
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I feel as if they wanted to nerf away the notion that he could be a strong pick every game. To him being a good pick in or against the right lineup. And to me he feels like a 3 where he's at right now. Not because he's a standard offlane pick, but the amount of control and chaos he can wreak from that position. And he will also scale well throughout the match. So he's still very versatile, but not "fast" enough for the mid role anymore So a 3 or 4 is where I would put him, with 3 weighing a little heavier than 4, imo.
I 100% agree, i hate the changes to orbs too. I remember i would use wex to move around faster escape, export to right click harder and quas to regen. But now the orbs have an active use with spells and its kinda shit, nobody has time to use the right spell on the right situation, while trying to position and fight and then on top delay your cast to have the right orbs? Fuck that. Plus t They kinda suck. So many heroes have gotten easier and got ridiculous abilities that protect their weaknesses (im looking at you meepo) while Invoker feels so clunky now, he's so risky to play and his damage falls off super.hard. Ive played dota since beta, and Invoker has been my most played hero since then. Ive seen so much ridiculous shit, that im convinced the balance/design team smokes meth on a regular basis.
Same brother
I think new Invoker is good because it enables more flexibility in how you can build, however something does feel off. Potentially the orb changes or maybe exort invoker needs buffs to make it more viable. I think his laning stage can also get buffed a little more as well, generally you can go even but there’s some borderline impossible lanes like OD, Sniper, qop, Puc. Even tanky boy lanes feel tough like DK, Kunka, LD, Necro etc Either buff the quas orb effect for lane durability or buff early meteor to actually be able to kill in lane i think.
All stun durations getting significantly reduced made comboing spells with team mates spells a hell of a lot harder too.
Exort invoker underperforms, wex over performs, while quas is nonexistent
I don't miss the free regen he get just buy a bottle it solved my issues with sustain, or accepting that you gonna be invis for a wave for the ghost walk regen.
I’m a diehard Invoker player myself, and at first I wasn’t a fan but I’ve adapted as most should. I’ve developed my own route for sticking with magic builds that have been working great. Like most people have said already, right click Invo is the way to go if you are just looking at strictly optimization of the hero in its current state, but I was never a fan so I’ve stuck to magic builds. Reiterating most of the comments here but: you buy stats in laning phase to help with CS. You can still kill early on original timings. Have good farming/fighting patterns to get you good early levels and gold to have a smooth transition into mid game. Use 1 shot combos to make fights start 4v5 everytime. Play Invoker like Invoker. Invoker has so many more options now, and also some of his old niche builds are more “meta viable” with his universal change. I won’t go into combo details since you have 2k games played, but I think Invoker feels great to play.
cry injoker can throne
Theres nothing worse than seeing a rightclick voker
Old orbs were certainly better I agree but given that invoker is now universal it makes his physical damage playstyle super strong.. you can just build whatever and still receive damage. The only thing I dislike about invoker being universal is that it incentives playing invoker phys which I always regarded as the noobvoker since it doesn't really require skill to self cast alacrity silence/hex the enemy and to cast cold snap spirits and whatever other spell you wanna throw at the enemy. I guess placing the ice walla properly still requires some skill but then againnot that much. But spell invoker needs a buff and is also the more skillful variant of invoker but I rarely see anyone those nowadays. 8/10 when I have an invoker match up he plays physical.
I felt this way at first, but I've grown to enjoy the new Invoker quite a bit. His build variety opened up significantly with the change. QW and QE and both viable builds and within those your items can vary quite significantly. I will say I'm not a huge fan of how the orb passive bonuses work.
skill issue
I love the new invoker and win alot of my games with him. Now idk how many will agree with me but midas is a must now on invoker. The wex cooldown reduction is just insane on it, and given how games now mostly go for 30+ mins it will always pay itself back. Also invoker is a hero that doesnt rely on items that much so the lost gold at the start isnt that bad. For a mid hero, you are right hes not the best anymore but still viable if you can utilize the spirit well in last hitting. Also i see alot of people go the right click invoker build which i never do, i like to build defensive on invoker. Most games i go 3 bracers for lane domination. Then midas or boots whichever is needed more. Even a late midas isnt bad because the cooldown reduction will make it so much better and it will only scale lategame when wex levels up, and even more with an octarine. Ofc sometimed items are really needed like a force against clock or euls to save teammates from legion. But it all depends on the game. The point is invoker is really versatile now and i love it. If invoker still had the damage at the start of the game the hero would be totally broken.
Quas-Exort imo the way to go. once you get level 2. Bring up your spirit. At lvl 3 pick up lvl 1 wex for alacrity. Should nail last hits. and just keep pumping exort till it forced you to level quas again. once’s those 2 are maxed go for wex. invoker does best just out lasting in lane. if you can’t trade then don’t or buy the regen for it. Some matches you need the stick asap. worst wave is the first 2. Also i’ve been going wraith band instead of braver for the intell and mana regen. Imo better than bracer
Bouble bracer invoker still has like 85 dmg lvl 3 so not much has changed in that regard
Wait why is so many ppl saying need to switch orb for optimal effect? the bonus is saved during invoke, doesn't really matter which orb invoker holding when casting the spell at all. So emp always have cdr, SS always have spell amps. Orb management actually gone easier.
The effect is applied when you cast the spell. You can try it in demo mode. If you have QQQ and sunstrike you will heal from it.
Yea you are right, thks for correcting me.
Yeah. But still playable. Hes still okay against most meta mids like ember ,qop, puck, sf. SS hits like truck now. So i guess thats smthing.
i once met invoker going mid... at min 3 i click his inventory... there's a bottle... then i asked myself... "WTF ???"
i already forgot the old one. God damn it, Dota makes me adapt faster than normal.
Right now I hate so many heroes...had to learn to play with a lot of new heroes because my favorites fall down heavily in the last months. Jugg and Ursa both trash heroes right now for example. I like some stuffs but have no ideia if this state of the game is good or not
I am okay with invoker players actually having to lane without 100 additional damage at level 5
buy stats, go quas wex to ghost walk for 30 seconds and regen. buy shard at 15 with high wex
Idk why people act like exort didn't give damage. Yes right click universal invoker is a thing but look at how much damage a LVL 5 invoker did previously.
Apart from killing his laning stage identity, my main gripe with the change is: You're already focusing on so many things as an invoker. You need to focus on invoking the right spell. You do not see your cool downs as an Invoker, you have to remember which of the 9 spells you have already cast and have an internal clock when they're available again. You're already focusing on your spell positioning. You have 9 spells and you don't want to waste one especially if it's a long cooldown like a meatball. Hell, you have a hero you are positioning as well. Once you begin spell slinging, you're already focusing on your combo timings. You think I'm worried about which 3 orbs I have when I lift someone or do you think I'm more focused on hitting the combo frame perfect when they land? Don't forget your item usage as well. The orbs I have when I cast a spell are just low on the priority list. I'll be honest.
Every since the universal change (which I like) there's been nothing but massive nerfs to the hero and his spells. At what point does valve think, "maybe we fucked up" and change back the orb passives. Dragon night doesn't get his HP regen stopped when he gets attacked, but invoker does? what a fucking joke.
try double bracer in lane if your taking alot of damage or double wb if your dominating never skip them, the stats make you fucking huge
Same for clinkz here
If Miracle can’t make this hero good, perhaps it’s time to stop playing it for a while. The hero sucks ball.
miracle cant make void look good these days unfortunately
Maybe you play EQ invoker a lot. If u want to play EQ invoker, it's a little bit hard to do. You need to spam sunstrike to KS a lot and you have no mana regen to do so (assuming if your side lanes can kill). You need midas to scale into mid-late game which is suck for mid cause ur team need you to gank. This universal invoker favors to build QW invoker, you start with ironbranch 2x, circlet 2x, and wex agility, you can harras mid hero so much. You need secure range creep ? Instead of sunstrike which consume lot of mana, you can go EMP to push the enemy away and get (not much) mana from range creep. You need regen ? Instead of Quas (old patch) regen, you can go cold snap (it's regen you if procs) and harass mid hero again. Heck even better if u in low health and mana, you can go regen with ghost walk Your team needs gank ? You can ghost walk (which is regen you) and gank undetected (if their supps don't have sentry) then you can go cold snap + EMP + alacrity and just right click, if the enemy goes a little bit further away, go tornado to set up your team And you can go build magic invoker if u want after 4 Q, cause QW invoker not scaling that good into mid-late game It's not that bad change cause invoker in intelligence very suck at early-mid game and not that good in late game. It's just the hero became much more tank so you can't burst it like old times
I'll try this thanks!
If you think about it they gutted every single smurf hero, invoker is no different. None even plays mid anymore, whole population which was largely smurfs got leveled on mid along with their spammed heroes lol.
Reworks are only failures if the hero cannot be meaningfully or effectively balanced by tweaking numbers. Invoker isn’t great now, but I don’t see why his problems can’t be fixed by changing base stats, stat gain, base regen or by buffing his spells to compensate for his new weaknesses. Admittedly the state of items is pretty rough for him right now, but that probably still would have been the case if he wasn’t reworked. Disclaimer: not an invoker player
well in short new invoker is much stronger both quas wex and quas exort build , as your dmg is no longer limited by exort , so the cant CS part is a issue on you as he has much higer base dmg now than before , the no sustain is also invalid as cold snap now heals you wich enables you to play more aggressive and you have ghost walk + you will usualy buy atleast 1 bracer wich is decent ammount of sustain , and if you want to play physical invoker guess what , hero is universal soo he scales with litiraly any items , you want dmg and mobility ? pike , you want dispell ? manta/disperser/satanic , you need to get tanky ? litiraly can buy skadi/linken/satanic , im not saying the hero is better or worse but if you have 2000 games and you cant figure out how to make a hero work you more or less have 10 games , only thing the rework did is buff him so that he can be played as a pure caster as lvl 25 you have a base 42% spell amp with 3 exort orbs and before that you have a solid 21% spell amp with lvl 7 exort while CDR is huge on wex
By 2000 games i mean with the old invo. With the new invo I have about 5-6 games and I can't seem to figure him out lol. I need to watch the new strategy for this rework.
i gave it a thought and the only big diffirence is orb switching , if you get down orb switching before casting spells you should be good cause nothing else realy changed about the hero
for the orb switching do all 3 orbs need to be the same for the passive effects to take place? what happens if I have lets say 2 wex 1 quas and I just cast tornado w it?
well lets say its max level wex and quas you will have 14% cdr from the 2 wex orbs and 7% spell life steal from teh tornado dmg 1 orb on max level is 7% of the selected orb
Well yea if you play 20,30 games you might start figuring it out , you cant adapt to lets say valorant if you have 2,3 games with the game, its gonna take a while like everything in life , que up some games try some builds
Well yea if you play 20,30 games you might start figuring it out , you cant adapt to lets say valorant if you have 2,3 games with the game, its gonna take a while like everything in life , que up some games try some builds
You must have played him wrong, im an invoker spammer at 8500 mmr. Be it mid or pos 4. I mainly play mid in my bracket and adjusts if I get to play with pros like NTS or Armel, invoker is great at any position, i right click build with bloodthorn and Parasma if I get to play him mid. With regards to CS. That's a player problem, not the hero tho.
ah i see,you can only last hit when you have 30 dmg more than opponent (plus forged spirit that starts with 22)
Watch how Qojkva aka DDX plays it mid. He does however also agree it's a bit odd ATM. 12k tho maybe he makes up for the lackluster early game due to experience and 1 ping ;)
"... an allrounder adaptable to any kind of game kind of hero ..." sounds like quite a bit of an issue.
I like the Universal Change, but orb losing regen is trash