Bloodseeker Edges Back Into The Meta
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Bloodseeker has mostly been in the category of heroes who work great in pubs but poorly in the pro scene. When Bloodrage was reworked and Thirst got buffed over and over, he had a brief reign in the meta. Once that craziness got put to rest, the hero rescinded into irrelevancy in the competitive scene. Under the radar, he’s been buffed fairly consistently, enough to be showcased across a breadth of games during the TI7 qualifiers.
A History Of Buffs
Bloodseeker is one of the game’s top pub stompers, with a kit that checks off a few boxes more pivotal to pubs than pro games: skills that are more advantageous when the game knowledge of the average player is lower (what is this thing on the ground, and why am I losing life from moving around), an almost secured sustainability in lane and a global passive that not only reveals invisible heroes but has his lane opponent screaming at his teammates to heal. He’s the 6th most played hero in the current patch and at a 52.88% win rate, which lands him 22nd overall and the highest among the 12th most played heroes (Crystal Maiden, as the 13th most played hero, has a whopping 53.92% win rate).
LFY.Monet squeezes in an Aghanim’s Scepter in his item build, on his way to a 18/1/17 score
The hero is well within the annoying category, where it’s not about how much a hero wins, but the way he wins. Bloodseeker victories are runaway ones where he snowballs and relentlessly picks off unwitting pubbers. And yet, he’s been buffed for the past year, since patch 6.87, which gave him an superfluous Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade and increased his Strength gain by 20%, from 2 to 2.4. Since that patch, Rupture has been buffed three times, netting a lower cast rate and an increase in its distance to damage from 20%/40%/60% to 30%/45%/60%. Similarly, Thirst was also rescaled to be stronger in its earlier levels, and it now lingers for 2 seconds after a hero dies.
But what may have ultimately tipped Bloodseeker into a playable hero for pros were buffs to his toughness. Though he was always able to trade well in the lane, he was still vulnerable to ganks or an unfavorable lane, where his low health pool could just hamstring his early game. His Strength gain increased from 2 to 2.7 total over the past year, and his level 10 talent was increased from +200 to +225 health (it has a 0.3% win rate edge in pubs). Top this all off with his most recent buff in 7.06c that increased his base total attack damage to 57-63, as if he wasn’t already last hitting well enough.
You’re Doing It Wrong
Why win the lane when you can win the jungle?
Bloodseeker in pro games is played ubiquitously in lane, mostly in the mid or safe lane. But it’s in pubs that he’s spending the majority of his time in the jungle, where players use Bloodthirst to play their MMO mini-game instead of leveraging that strength to overpower a lane opponent. That’s most apparent in his mid lane statistics, which is 4 points higher than the jungle.
In that context, it’s no surprise. 3 out of the top 8 most popular heroes—Axe, Legion Commander, and Bloodseeker—are played in the jungle. The jungle is the safe space, a refuge from public scrutiny. You can’t be blamed for losing your lane if you’re never in the lane. The rationale is that the passive, uncoordinated nature of pubs allows players to be greedy in the early game without necessarily being punished. And yet for all these heroes, their win rates are better when played in lane, across all skill brackets.
In The Meta, For Better or Worse
Because of the slow growth of Bloodseeker’s strength, he’s at a point where he is less niche and more optimal as a pick against the mobile cores of todays meta, such as Dark Seer, Sven, and Bristleback. Before TI7, he was almost never picked or banned, and during the SEA qualifiers, he was (picked 13 times)https://www.dotabuff.com/esports/events/183/picks and banned 15 times. It’s the bans here that legitimizes him as more than a niche pick.
XemistrY using his Midas to gain that last bit of HP to survive
The greatest ripples from pro games occur from TI main stage matches. One dominant performance by a popular player can cause spikes in the pick rate for that hero the next day. While the China and SEA qualifiers are on a lesser stage, the trends show that there’s bound to be a dominant Bloodseeker performance at the main event. He’s already one of the most popular heroes in the game, but there’s always room to grow.
Im the definition of a crappy pub player, but my go to in pubs when i need a win is always BS Mid.
I have to link my BS mid Dotabuff profile (which i have keyboard macroed) showing 70% win rate so the other 3 scrubs who "mid or feed" cede it.
https://www.dotabuff.com/players/51005102/matches?hero=bloodseeker&lane_role=midlane
I would give every single "buff" this hero has had over the last 13 patches back if Icefrog would just change bloodthirst's scaling back to 100-25. If you don't have a team who keeps the enemy at low HP in the laning stage the hero can't snowball and then he gets outcarried by like 90% of other carries. You also used to constantly have like +10% extra movespeed and extra damage all through the mid game since several of the enemy heroes would usually be at 80-85% hp while they are jungling. Now he only gets extra damage during teamfights - and it takes until an enemy hero is at 75%hp before he even starts getting a single tick of extra damage and movespeed. How great a carry is that he needs the enemy to be at 75% before his steroid ability provides a single bit of use.
Gone from a 70% winrate on him in 6.84 to like one win out of the past 10 games since.
I'm sure another bloodrite cooldown is on its way.
Damn this hero is too good, I always play him offlane and I get very good result (I went 15 - 3 since around 3 weeks ago when I use BS frequently). Mind you that im only 3k scrub but I think this hero is very good for fellow 3k who want to raise mmr