In Need Of A New Wisp
By a significant margin, Io has the lowest win rate of all time in pubs, sitting slightly below 40%. Despite this historic low, he nonetheless has the potential to be a top pick in the right hands. It was the 5th banned hero during the main event and group stage at TI, due to its strength on teams like Virtus.Pro and Team Liquid.
The thing is that Wisp isn’t a great hero for most pub players. He requires a coordinated team, and a player with keen map awareness and game sense. For this past month in the <5k bracket, Wisp’s win rate ranges from 37.26%-40.68%. In the 5k+ bracket, its win rate tops at 47.88%. The hero is unpopular, struggles still at the highest skill bracket, and even many pro teams don’t use Wisp well enough to warrant a top ban. Is it time for a rework?
Key rotation by Liquid.GH nets his team a kill
Why Wisp Struggles In Pubs
Wisp is at the bottom of heroes to play while drunk precisely because of its abilities to backfire. Relocate can send two heroes to die because of one person’s mistake. Io’s abilities require people to work in tandem—to coordinate movements, bait opponents, find openings in lane, and know when to backdoor. A pub player picking Io may be knowledgeable about these tactics, but the team also needs to be on the same page. And when Io is the 3rd least popular hero, at a pick rate of 1.9%, there’s a good chance your team won’t have much experience playing with Io. Compare this to Lich, who doesn’t care who his lane partner is. All he needs to do is cast Sacrifice and the occasional Nova. Lane is won. 54% win rate.
Next, for some reason, pub players are playing Io in the wrong lane. Wisp is in the safe lane in 47.46% of pubs, where it has the second to lowest win rate (the lowest is roaming, at 23.12%). The safe lane is safe, with plenty of other support heroes to secure it. Io, when paired with the right heroes, has unique advantages that players can leverage in the off or mid lane (45.4% win rate).
Pub player, Hope, plays a carry version of Wisp and has logged over 3300 games with the hero
Why Wisp Can Actually Be Strong In Pubs
The same reasons of game sense that make it difficult to use Io are also the advantages it has against opponents. First, ratting is extremely strong across most pubs. Cunning Nature’s Prophets players have long taken advantage of opponents stumbling to rotate, overrotate, or not at all between lanes. But Io, partnered with a hero like Tiny, can be more effective in taking out those objectives in the late game. This kind of mobility is why Io scales in the late game, and why he continues to be a top ban for teams who can use him well, since they’ll always have a path to win the game even when the stakes are dire.
Second, pubs rarely rotate or switch lanes in the first five minutes, making a combo like Io+Tiny especially strong against a stranded mid laner. Roles before the game are staked quickly. One person claims off lane, another claims mid, but rarely do they stipulate that they’ll need to switch lanes, or pair up, in case the matchup is disadvantageous. What usually happens is that they feed at least once before the team recognizes that lane needs help.
Playing against Tiny+Io requires preparation, a little foresight, an awareness of when it’s safe or dangerous to peek into the lane, a mid hero that can survive, and a supportive team. All these factors can be too much to ask for in pubs, and sometimes even in pro games. Team Complexity recently qualified for the Starladder Invitational off the back of their Tiny+Io pair. Wisp has the advantage of being so unpopular and unorthodox that most players tend to get baited by its mechanics. Tiny+Io may feel like cheese, but Io also has other strong pairs that can take advantage of opponents underrating its healing: Bristleback, Necrophos, Sven, and Legion Commander are a few common ones that pubs may be used to.
Wisp is in this tenuous balance of being too good for select pro teams and yet both unpopular and underpowered for the pub gamer. Although it’s very much like Dota to have a hero in this space, other heroes that have been here have had tweaks or a rework--Chen has seen his own share of major tweaks, including an Aghanim's upgrade--without compromising the core of the hero.
So ah.... what? Wisp is good... but not.... good enough?
every wisp player just feeds
The main problem with Wisp is that n0tail now plays carry.
In all seriousness, there probably *is* a problem in having a hero that for any given team is either unplayable or a 100% first phase ban. The only time Wisp is ever particularly interesting from a draft perspective is when both teams can play it well, and even then usually one of them will ban it.
It's disappointing, because there's nothing cooler than seeing great Wisp play, just like there's nothing cooler than seeing any great player play their best hero. Unfortunately, in 2017, it seems that any remotely good Wisp player just gets Wisp first-phase-banned in every game and 'having a Wisp player' actually just means forcing a ban from your opponent, which is strong but not the same.
It can work in pubs :P
No. I just got the exclusive Arcana in the last Battle Pass :D
For pro players, IceFrog could add some sort of damage reduction to buildings for wisp and the hero it's tethered to during relocate. No more "tier 3 and rax down" in 12 seconds.
The points brought up do not reflect on Wisp as a hero, but rather on the community at large. Wisp sits at the 111th most played hero, only beaten by Beast Master and Chen. Most players will not play these heroes because they believe they are "high-skill only heroes", or that their team is trash and won't know how to play with them. Indeed, they require a high degree of coordination and skill, but does that warrant a change in the hero? Rather, players should look to themselves to take on the challenges of difficult to play heroes, and not wait for developers to dumb down heroes for less skilled players.
Simply put, pros are pros for a reason, because they are better than the average Dota player. Of course pros will perform better on heroes with high skill caps, because they understand the game better and have dedicated coordination. You cannot compare a pro team of 5 seasoned players to a pub team of 5 randomly matched players. Suggesting to change a hero because of this skill gap is ridiculous. If Valve is in the business of dumbing down heroes, might as well remove the micro element from Chen, BM, and Visage, the other members of the 4 least played heroes.
Wisp is actually good in low mmr pubs if you focus on Tether+Overcharge and don't stress about Relocate and balls. His sustain is unrivaled! Paired up with a tanky hero that usually has mana pbs, like Sven, it's brutal.
If you like the hero, slowly start working your way thrpugh his other skills. Keep relocate ganks to last, but relocate saves are easier and less risky.
I myself struggle to remember Wisp picked, when i marked my chen picks. Always loved the pair with sendbacks, heals, rotations with potentially immobile heroes. Not an Io player,but seeing a good one is pleasure. :)
Sad to have people sticking to easier hero choices - may grant high reward, but boring as hell though...
Dota, if anything, is, strangely, a game of balance. Oftentimes it feels very unbalanced, but in the end everything has its place. Techies feels very outside of Dota in many senses, but few heroes can be as effective at ruining a gank lineup as Techies can. If you have no detection or good source of wave clear, you better ban out Broodmother. Niche heroes don't need to be reworked. They fill a spot that nothing else quite does, and although they don't fill much else, losing their skillset in the game would open up a huge hole in the balance of the game.
It's more than ok that a hero is unpopular, so long as it can be proven that they have a reason to be in the game as they are. Wisp has proven this easily, and it is up to pub players to recognize and adapt to the hero, not the other way around.
Oh, and while I get why the author brought up Chen at the end of the article, Chen is still largely unplayed as well. I'm not sure it proved his point.
"For pro players, IceFrog could add some sort of damage reduction to buildings for wisp and the hero it's tethered to during relocate. No more "tier 3 and rax down" in 12 seconds."
So it could go from being a barely-played hero that is powerful in some hands to a completely useless hero that is completely shit?
Antoher thing to note is that lich is a counter to io, missplace one blink and you'll eat full ultimate. And lich is a plague this days...
Lich aghs gives me nightmares
IO/wisp need small buff on 1st/3rd skill and an aghanim would be great
Edit : the writer never play IO/wips, but made an article about it.
Io is hard to use, that's why it has a low win rate in the public games. Unless you do a lot of practice, you won't get a good score and / or performance. it has a high win rate in the official tournaments because, differently from the "public " games, those guys who are paid to play, practice that hero (and other supports) a lot and they are supposed to be good. End of the story.
of course Complexity qualified with Io. Limmp is a beast on that combo pair
Good post eggs,i had topic about this here,its disadvantage for us that hero require so much compare to others,he is kinda pro games only hero,and that example of lich is good i like it,shows stupidity of Dota makes low skill cap heroes just so strong compare to io,necro sitting on high winrate so buff him....thats how it works
IO is great if you know how to use it as a support+ganker
it provides mana and HP reg as well and somehow is a great counter for Doom and Venomancer Ulti and can help your teammates to survive from those strong ultimates.
Yo espero un reseña para el puck
No.........
Help me,I've MMR 1k
wisps spells are incredibly strong in the right hands, but they also feel incredibly outdated. I'd love to see some quality of life updates for the little ball.
Io mid. Not even joking about this one. Heroes have gotten role swaps before; more recently, we're seeing the pos 3 and 4 mixups. Why not try it?
Don't know why I have to keep saying it over and over again: DotA is not balanced around pubs, thank God. And Wisp is balanced in pro DotA.
Can dotabuff get people who are at least about 5-6k to write articles? Because this is at best 3k logic.
EDIT: Yup, author of this article is 3.8k, who would have known.
No need for a rework. Its hard to play a good wisp, and its fine like that.
I feel like a lot people think it doesnt do anything, so they dont even consider trying it.
Why does it matter what mmr is the author? He is right.
I am a wisp player, i love playing it but its terribly nerfed.
And if u also nerf some of his best pairs - Tiny / CK / Gyro / Sven, u get an overall 37 % winrate on pubs with wisp, which is very low and by far requires some rework / buff on wisp.
Imo, better Str progression or Armor progression should do it...
I know is terribly low because at the top of Winrate chart is Spectre with 56% winrate (only 6% over 50). At the end is Wisp with 37% (so 13% below 50).
+ i remember the times when tether had stun instead of slow...Great times for Wisp...
I agree, IO is nerfed, especially recent update nerf all skill (slower movement speed bonus, higher mana cost, higher mana/health drain and higher relocate delay).
IO has been nothing but nerfed for the last 3 years. And in all the wrong places making him worthless in pubs and still OP in pros. Frog needs to buff it's damage so it can be played in pubs while not effecting it's utility that the pros crave.
IO is very strong and useful as it is. Plus, it's balanced. If they rework it, it might be hard to get it balanced again. Plus, the % of success with it depends on the player, not on the hero. Take Earth Spirit for example, people claim he is too hard but don't even know exactly how he works. I say it's fine, and if the % of success is low then so be it. It gives an advantage to good Wisp players.
Crappy hero
SAD VERY HIGH SKILL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MAX OPEN MMR 3.500 !!! FUCKING DOTA 2 ....
eggs, you haven't ever played the hero before, and you're writing about how it's time for a rework? Why? Io has his place in the game, and reworking him would change the dynamic of the competitive scene entirely, not to mention a slap in the face of all those who's put hundreds of hours into the hero to mastered it, like Lil, GH, Jerax etc. You can't just rework a hero because he's too hard for public players to master.
Tbh, good old Guardian Wisp is actually my absolut favorite hero in this game. For me it's the definition of a support hero and like Brock Hall already wrote, Wisp does not need a rework. Complex but not too criptic, if the situation fits, pick it. I have only two wishes relating to Wisp: Please raise its strength grow/level or give him a little more starting armor.
The problem is not on the wisp, it is the player, pub especially. We still lack many thing, especially map awareness. We often see some player still smashing the jungle while the teamfight occur near him. While bottle is core for him, none of the teammate allow io to farm for it, and always pinging him to ward and ward. In coordinated team (pro), this is less likely to happen.
And anyway, who cares about author mmr? His last game is in 2015, who knows maybe he has another account and use this account only for writing purpose?
just looking at the title i can say no. we are not fucking league, IF wont fucking care about pubs ever. wisp is good in pro play and in FPL (which is a better version of ranked for pros)
for me as a wisp player the challenge is what makes this hero interesting for me. Nothing gives more satisfaction than getting better in your plays when it takes a long time to get there. You are crazy for suggesting, this is like saying hey invoker is hard to master, let's change the hero.
Since I'm in a low mmr bracket (2k) pretty no one understands how to work as a team, making wisp rather hard to play with, and there is always 1 support and 4 cores, making it that most io's have to safelane cause everyone else is selfish and won't help support