Readying up for 7.00
7.00 has been released almost a week ago, yet many players still struggle with the new mechanics, UI and the general chaos that always signifies the beginning of a patch. To help catch people up to speed, we decided to have a quick overview of the most impactful changes of the patch: the discussion will be both on the new mechanics as well as ways of dealing with certain new aspects of the game.
Dealing with Monkey King
Monkey King is by no means overpowered. He is a very snowballing hero, who excels during the laning stage, but otherwise he is not broken.
One of the most important things players need to realise, is that you do not manfight MK in the lane. He will quickly stack his passive to four hits and will brush off all the harassment, while dealing a lot of damage. During the laning stage you should treat the hero in more or less the same manner you would treat an Ursa or Batrider—do not let the ability stack, or you are in for a world of pain.
Come early mid-game, the hero transforms into a very powerful scout and ganker. You should generally play against him in more or less the same manner you would play against Bloodseeker or Night Stalker—more often than not MK will have a vision advantage on you with the flying vision on the treetops and will try to initiate on a lonely target. With one core item he can also burst down most supports incredibly fast. Grouped up or at least in pairs of two will ensure your survival or at least will net a return kill.
In the late game, Wukong, even if he managed to successfully snowball, is no bigger threat than most other carries. While a lot of his damage is physical and there are a lot of scaling abilities in his kit, the same can be said about the majority of hard carries. The most important part is knowing not to fight in his ultimate or having enough burst to deal with it quickly. The statutes do not only deal massive damage, but they also proc effects, including bash, which makes fighting in the arena a very dangerous endeavour. Having vision in the area and, if necessary, invisibility detection is a must. Also, take into account that no conventional forms of disable work on the statues and they are not affected even by Chronosphere or Song of the Siren.
The hero is rather annoying to play against, but he is reasonably balanced, with a lot of frustration mainly coming from misunderstanding of his abilities and the general lack of knowledge. His introduction into the game has been among the most successful ones, but his win rate is still well within the “balanced” hero margins.
Managing Backpack
Backpack can be confusing. It can be especially confusing given the constant UI changes that occurred since its introduction.
In reality, there is absolutely nothing complex about this mechanic. If anything, it makes the life of players a lot easier, since completing recipes requires less tedious courier management.
It also opens up several interesting possibilities, such as on-demand item hot-swapping. We’ve touched on the subject back in our initial impressions post, but now we have more information to work with, now that the patch is actually released.
Items in the backpack do not gain charges. Magic Stick/Wand and Urn of Shadows are completely unusable, unless they are in the main inventory. And you cannot place Bloodstone in the backpack.
Blink Dagger, on the other hand, does get the three second penalty on hit even in the backpack. Moreover, because backpack items cooldown twice as slow, trying to hot-swap Blink Dagger is ill advised.
When it comes to potential tricks, there are the usual Refreshers Orb and Black King Bar ones—they work exceptionally well and are generally easy to handle. The courier hot swap is probably a lot faster than 6 seconds, especially when done by a good player, but it is still riskier and can get messy in a teamfight.
In the ultra-late games, when you are already 6-slotted and have a moon shard, it is generally a good idea to have money for buyback and buy all the wards/gems/tomes of knowledge for the team. If after all of this you still have money to spare, consider getting Necronomicon and at least one Desolator for the team.
These items are not extremely efficient in the late-game, hence they should remain in the backpack, but after a successful fight you can greatly increase your pushing potential with a single attack with a Desolator and a simple Necronomicon summon. In Throne Rushing scenarios or when trying to get megacreeps it can shave off the precious several seconds, which can be the difference between a win and a loss. Do not forget to immediately put them back into the backpack, though.
And finally, now there is absolutely no reason for a player to not have a Teleport scroll on them at all times.
Shrines
Shrines are a great addition to the Dota world. Their usefulness is not limited to a once-in-5-minutes heal, however, since they double up as a teleport location and allow the team to have at least some control over the map when the T1’s are gone.
Using them is associated with a high opportunity cost. As a heal for a single person, it is highly questionable, but sometimes necessary. For 2+ players it can be rather momentum changing, since a shrine usage can allow you to engage, when the enemy is not expecting it, or heal up after a fight and continue pushing refreshed.
The Shrines’ map placement has also raised an interesting discussion—did the safelane and offlane get swapped in the patch? Former offlane now has a much easier access to the Shrine and having multiple people benefit from an occasional burst heal can allow the team to gain a small tempo advantage.
Talents overview
Not everyone is still used to the new talents mechanic—players regularly miss their level 10 talents and this can put them at a potential disadvantage, especially with the ones that provide static GPM increase or extra XP gain.
And a lot of people are still being caught off-guard with some of the talents, overestimating their nuke combo or taking unfavorable fights. In this section we will take a look at some of the noteworthy talents which can mess up your power level calculations.
Durability
Armor
Early 6 extra armor on an already durable hero can be surprising in a very painful way. Couple it with a strong self-healing spell and Bane becomes one of the most tanky supports in the game. Trying to burst him down can become problematic once he gets level 10 and wasting several abilities on a support is generally ill advised, especially if the support can survive the initiation.
Similarly, but to a lesser extent, heroes like 
Batrider, 
Clockwerk and 
Bloodseeker can suddenly become less susceptive to physical damage.
Evasion
Some of the talents now include Evasion. It can be a rather annoying mechanic, since it will almost certainly lead to damage miscalculations, unlikely escapes and a certain degree of frustration.
Heroes who currently have Evasion as one of the talent choices include: Anti-Mage (15% | lvl20), Bounty Hunter (20% | lvl25), Centaur Warrunner (10% | lvl15), Clinkz (20% | lvl20), Dark Seer (12% | lvl10), Faceless Void (20% | lvl25), Lifestealer (15% | lvl20), Lycan (15% | lvl20), Medusa (10% | lvl15), Meepo (10% | lvl20), Naga Siren (15% | lvl15), Phantom Lancer (15% | lvl20), Shadow Fiend (15% | lvl20), Sven (15% | lvl20) and Templar Assassin (12% | lvl15).
It can be difficult to learn these heroes by heart, but knowing when what heroes can suddenly become a lot harder to deal with is almost a must—you will have to make correct item choices when the enemy is about to hit their talent levels.
Lifesteal
Lifesteal as a survivability mechanic does not shine bright until very late into the game, at least on the majority of heroes, and this is where the most lifesteal talents come into play.
There are three (30% lifesteal | lvl25) talents: 
Alchemist, 
Arc Warden and Bloodseeker. In general, it will mean at least 45 HP per hit (taking into account Armor) and, given the high attack speeds at this point in the game, it can stack up to a massive boost to survivability.
Huskar and Phantom Assassin also have lifesteal talents, albeit on a smaller scale. But both of these heroes have a lot of DPS early in the game, either through a massive increase in AS or very powerful crits, so stay vigilant.
DPS
A great deal of heroes have added bonus damage as one of their talents. Similarly, many talents offer massive boosts to Attack Speed and sometimes it can lead to a huge power level spike for a hero.
Of the pure damage increases, the most noteworthy one is probably 
Axe’s, which comes early in the game and can synergize exceptionally well with the added Attack Speed after the successful Culling Blade. +75 damage at level 15 is a noticeable improvement and while in most games this talent will lose to its +250 health counterpart, it is still worth being prepared for.
Beastmaster also gets a massive damage increase talent. It adds +120 damage, but comes very late into the game—lvl 25. At this point it is unlikely a regular Beastmaster will be able to manfight very well, however it can boost his split-pushing capabilities by a huge margin.
Bounty Hunter gets +100 at lvl20. Given the hero’s guaranteed critical strike, it can turn him into a very deadly assassin. Trying to play him as a right-clicking core is probably still ill advised, since his abilities and stats do not support this playstyle. One-shotting the enemy supports, however, can become a nice perk for the hero.
Several support heroes, such as Lion, Rubick and Crystal Maiden get an early talent for +50 damage. At level 10 it can be a noteworthy boost to their right-click DPS, but not only do they typically reach higher levels slower, they also lack Attack Speed to fully utilize the added damage.
Closing Thoughts
The new patch has definitely shaken up the game. With the amount of new options, keeping track of all that’s happening and staying up-to-date is problematic.
The transition to a “new” game with a new UI, new mechanics and a lot of other new things seems painful, at least for pub players. A week in, a lot of people are still misunderstanding and overvaluing Monkey King, both as an ally and as an opponent. Many players still miss their first talent and many do not take into account enemy’s talents.
Being prepared is key in a game of Dota and maybe it’s worth queuing a bit of´unranked first, before diving into the harsh competition that is ranked.
not first
bluergh
I play PA against MK everytime, won almost every game. PA seems to be really broken this patch overall, she really benefits from the fast leveling and the skill tree upgrades.
Monkey King is not balanced his ultimate is completely broken and overpowered it has a hidden attirbute that causes everyone on the enemy team to freeze for atleast 3 seconds, acting as a stun
some talent trees like shadow fiends +2dmg per soul still overpowered
FOURTH BLOOD!
MK isn't overpowered at all. He falls too quick mid-late game if he fails to snowball early.
slark has 10% lifesteal too
New UI is still awful and ugly.
Lifesteal should not be a Talent.
Medusa lifesteal @ 25.
Yes Dotabuff, Monkey King's skills are completely balanced.
/sarcasm
Monkey King doesn't really have a flash farm, and when people don't put time and effort into farming, instead jump around the map, usually miscalculating his power, he will be weak in later game. Yet, most of the time, he is picked for pos 1 or 2.
However, if he's no tbehind in gold or experience, the hero is very strong at late game by design.
Well, as you see, you can change Boots with BKB in Backpack when Smoke gank, it's still acceptable. But sudden gank by opponents are back. It always depends on skills and luck. Frankly.
I hope they fix the bug that stops you being able to move the camera by clicking on the minimap soon, its got me killed a couple of times now.
Yeah, that minimap bug is very, very annoying, and dangerous.
The problem with MK is he's too good at too many roles
He can roam better than bounty and riki early on
He is one of the strongest laners in the game and can play in almost any lane
He can gank just as well if not better than most midgame carries (he can solo basically anyone who isn't super tanky)
Late game he even has the potential to outcarry most carries
Yes, it's true he can drop off, but why does "dropping off" even matter if the hero has the potential to completely dominate the early/midgame basically on his own
NO hero currently in dota is so good at lvl1 and still has the potential to carry at lvl25 as he does, and this is why he is overpowered if played correctly, because he can do basically anything just as well as any other hero (except farming)
When MK has ECHO SABRE, His ult dudes proc from the %100 ms slow when hit.
great article. really
Agreed there @ rip arc.
Hence what I said is a problem with people playing him, and not the hero. The hero, as it stands, is overpowered if anything.
I think a lot of commentors across the web are forgetting about the context in which they saw a successful MK. Generally speaking, there are two things that allow for a successful win against a hero.
1. Matchups are always going to be a factor. MK feels overwhelming against a team without stuns for him, much like Legion. He is glassy, and he needs those 4 hits. If you can stun him before them or before his long cast time for ult, you're good. He goes down fast.
2. Play style matters. If you have the matchup but still don't play as a group, you're going to fall against MK.
The hero needs to stay ahead, and if you continue to make it easy for him to get kills, he will stay ahead. He will get to 25 faster than you, have more items than you, and feel unstoppable if you don't play correctly against him. But that's how all snowball heroes feel. The pressure is on early, and thus the game can be decided early.
It's pretty easy to not adjust your playstyle/matchup to account for your opponent, meaning you are naturally going to play poorly against certain lineups. These aren't even new problems for people. You have to play carefully early on against Night Stalker, Pudge, Ursa, Huskar, Undying, Pugna, Bloodseeker, and Drow Ranger. Any one of these heroes can be powerful in the late game if you refuse to play against their strengths. Unsurprisingly, these heroes are often among the most hated heroes because people often play lazily, expecting people to stay in their lane longer than they do, farming instead of pushing or ganking. Poor warding, over use of mana, etc can be exploited easily, causing a panic reaction to farm in risky situations--exactly the wrong thing to do.
In other words, your stats alone cannot be used to judge the hero. The hero is not the problem, as world stats have shown. The problem is your refusal to change.
I wouldn't say there's any problem with the hero. I merely think he might fall into the overpowered category, exactly because he have too many ways to be relevant at any stage of the game.
My posts are addressing more the fact that he loses more often than he should, because of poor plays or judgment of where he fits in the team.
So yes, Brock Hall raises some good points there.
Sure, he stays relevant at any point of the game, so long as he continues to execute properly. But once he falls behind, he stays behind. So the pressure is honestly on MK to stay ahead of the curve. He has to stay within his ult to keep it going, something hard for a glassy hero to do. He can't utilize his advantage if you stun him, and the moment you kill him, the ult goes away. Flying through the trees doesn't render him untraceable. Timber can use this skill against him and get immediate pure dmg while he is stunned. His q is a pretty long cooldown and the stun isn't long enough early game to get him to 4 hits. A force staff and TP can really limit his potential. And the crit is only 200%. A crit stick does 230, which is only the starting point for PA.
He is good at what he does, but it's a pretty specific thing that he does, so he better be good at it. It would be useless to pick the hero if he didn't have a way to get an advantage. So while I understand why it is easy to see him as OP, I think the more accurate assessment is that he is situationally OP. A high-ish risk, high-ish reward hero.
Side notes:
I'd suggest pairing him up with CM, an excellent early game dominator who can create those opportunities for the hits, allowing him to use the q as the closing hit rather than the opening hit. DS will help him by boosting his already good mobility and giving him extra dmg through ion shell to take with him. Vacuum wall is perfect to use with his ult. Don't pick him into something like an OD, Sniper, Zeus, SS, or any team with a lot of stuns. Anyone with hard escapes will fare well against him, like DS, Weaver, Mirana, or Morph. I'd say he is a wash against PA because he wins early but loses late. He will be pretty good against tanky lineups or teams that take some time to get into gear. But even they should have a pretty good time if they can just stay patient in their farming and avoid getting caught out. Once Medusa is up and running, he can't manfight her.
"And the crit is only 200%"
Actually it's 300% in the late game with the talent, though I guess you know that.
And I get what you're saying, but that's true for many DPS carries. The difference is that MK can still become a threat with 2 very strong skills even if he falls behind, something that a PA or the likes for example won't be able to do.
By the time the late game rolls around, it's fairly set in stone which team is going to win most of the time so I don't extra crit as a large factor in judging his rank. It isn't to say that hitting 25 will go unnoticed, but I see it more as a way for him to catch up because he is likely going to still have low stat mid game items like echo and deso. He might have upgraded the basher but the other items will show their age.
At this point I'd say that Slark is a larger threat, as he can transfer from the pickoff phase with echo and SB into the late game better because of his stat stealing ability, which only gets better with every hit rather than having a four hit limit. He is better suited for tanky items, has a more effective method of survival, and isn't as effectively countered by mobile heroes.
PA is certainly a master of one thing, I won't argue that, but in the right situation she feels OP. MK is a little more of a jack of all trades, but if I were in the drafting seat I would still place him as a last ban more often than a first ban because there are enough heroes that can mitigate his timing window in the pool that I would be willing to face him.
Don't confuse any of this as me saying that he is weak. He is strong for sure, but I just feel like if you fail to counter him or react correctly to his ganks, I feel like you're going to be to blame for him snowballing. OP territory to me is when proper play against a hero isn't enough. If his q was able to strike twice in a teamfight he would be OP. If his ult stayed even after he left it or died he would be OP. If he was invisible from the ground while jumping from tree to tree, or if there wasn't a damage cooldown he would be OP. If his attack counter was instead a timer, or his ult could proc jingo mastery, or he could scale his crit earlier instead of scaling the stun time, I think he would be OP.
All of people really over hyped MK as a core.. his basically a rich man troll warlord,fall of so bad in the late game..and he can't really flash farm like Sven,luna or even PA.. The People who are just generalising how MK is so OP are the same people who cant handle PA and called him OP.. There is certain play style to play MK as the same goes for PA.. They are not really OP hero
Если не давать стакать пасивку, то ничего имбового не будет
I feel like well placed wards, a vigilant eye (and ping) on the minimap, Bounty Hunter and Slardar all counter MK hard enough to stop his snowball early to mid game. When you get to the late game, a strong carry with a lifesteal ability / item (my preference being Shadow Fiend with a Satanic) will eat him for dinner.
how can one be OP if simple eul or radiance counter him
sim
Pudge and beastmaster counter him so hard
i play sniper just too beat monkey king
I really like Monkey playstyle because:
- Able to gank early, put pressure to enemy
- Unlike other carry simple playstyle like PA or AM, His playstyle is limitless and require higher skill. You can disguise as a tree/rune to ambush, can initiate, useful in 1vs1 and team fight, in all stages of the game. Just have to be smart.
- Combo with such heroes like Tide, Treant, CM or even Axe, monkey can send whole team to heaven.
- Don't think you can just counter monkey by cutting tree. On hand of skillful player, monkey still can make things happen.
0.01 speaks like a true low scrubs
https://clips.twitch.tv/forev/ThoughtfulParrotSoBayed
#balanced
I'd like to add my two cents regarding the discussion on whether MK is balanced or not. I believe that he is "balanced" as of now, considering that he was just introduced in the game. I also agree with what most of the people have said, such as him being indeed balanced, that the hero has a tendency to fall off greatly if mishandled, and that the hero adds a new play style to the current meta.
Also, I think Brock Hall has some strong points. To reiterate one of his arguments, I think countering MK requires a conscious effort from the whole team, despite what the composition may be, to keep a keen eye on the hero when MK is roaming and be very mindful during the laning stage and team fights. Ultimately, DotA is a team game after all and a well coordinated (or rather a cooperative) team will beat any "OP" hero any time of the day.
Lastly, let's not forget that Icefrog (with all his devotion and patience in always making the game feel fresh for both old and new players alike) is definitely monitoring the hero, as we speak. As such, a few more patches will definitely polish the hero even further.
"monkey king is reasonably balanced" stopped reading after that tbh
LMAO! Genghis Carl flames "scrub" but has a picture of Justin Beiber on profile?
>>>"monkey king is reasonably balanced" stopped reading after that tbh<<<
to answer above sentence: if MK is overpowered, why his win rate is below average ? :D
just to clarify something about winrates:
Winrates are, obviously, the measurement of how many games a hero has won out of how many times it was picked. This does not indicate whether the hero SHOULD have been picked for that match. Often a heros winrate will be very low but pros will pick the hero anyway because they are picking it in the correct situations. Wisp is a fantastic example of this, but there have been many heroes that were nerfed despite having a 40% winrate. On the opposite side, Pudge gets buffs.
What will determine the fate of MK will not be how many games he wins or loses, but how well he does in situations he should be losing and situations he should be winning. A high winrate could simply mean that people are picking him ONLY in the situations where he should be winning. It is a much harder thing to quantify, and it is why the game continues to change. Sometimes it's a bad judgement call (rubber band mechanics). What could be an indicator of possible changes is which direction his winrate goes in the highest tiers. You also might compare that to his pickrate and see what that does. A hero that has a 70% winrate but is only picked in 5% of games doesn't necessarily mean the hero is OP.
Having this in mind, I think the hero will naturally find himself being played in lower tiers more often with high success, and in high tiers less often with middling success. Some heroes are picked a ton and win about half their games. These are usually unchanged heroes, like Lion or DS. They fit well into a lot of strategies but aren't overpowered. MK is not one of these heroes, and I think the changes we see to him will continue to make him more and more of a niche pick.
BeastMaster: Has bird for flying vision, has axes to cut trees. 4 second stun followed up with the roar and thats a very dead Monkey
The lag that monkey king ultimate produce must be fixed!
Monkey King is completely broken. Your points are invalid. How are you not supposed to let his passive stack when he has 300 range and the counter lasts 15 seconds, and refreshes for the full amount with every increment?
And how are you supposed to get out of his ulti when every soldier procs the Echo Saber slow, on every hit, completely ignoring the cool down? Go ahead, test it yourselves.
Force Staff, Hurricane Pike, Ghost Scepter, Glimmer Cape, Shadow Blade, Silver Edge, and Ethereal Blade are all great items to get away from the Monkey King Ultimate.
Vengeful Spirit Swap, Io Relocate, Slark Pounce, Magnus charge, and any other movement based move to escape.
Area of Effect moves like Enigma Midnight Pulse, Jakiro Ultimate, Witch Doctor Ultimate, Ancient Apperation, Leshrec, and more are great for forcing Monkey King out of the arena.
His ultimate is like most ultimates, it is only as good as the timing and position.
Have means to cut trees, stun him, and nuke him down. He is incredibly easy to counter as long as you are willing to adapt and be flexible with your picks
@Placid - bad and childish argument there, perhaps you should try to involve THINKING next time you play against monkey. There are a lot of ways to counter. THAT IS IF YOU REALLY WANT TO COUNTER HIM
+1 to ~Hyatt
Gotta love how it's almost only NS that complains about MK being OP :D
FYI they fixed the minimap bug
monkey is just like any other carry, hes not op unless you let him to be, something like slark. every hero can be called op after he got farm. the thing is that mk is a new hero, people havent figured out how to play against him so they think hes op. timber is op, max your passive, buy hood, get 20 stacks and simply stand between towers tanking creep wave and tower hits or whatever, you get the point. in my opinion he should be played either as roamer or offlaner, everything else is greedy.
MK is good , but not OP. The problem is people tend to pick him 1st slot.
In normal match, sometimes I picked him first slot as well. other side picked pudge, lc, visage, omniknight =)) gg mk
When there's a MK on the other team it's a real pain in the neck, but when it's on my team it's just a feeder, does anyone suffer the same problem?