At first blush, Holy Locket was ripe for heroes that could make use of its cost-efficient stats and healing amplification. Dazzle and Necrophos were prime candidates, with the latter also benefitting from his own scaling regeneration skills. With their passives were reworked from magic resistance to health regeneration, heroes like Pudge and Huskar could make use of the item, even if they lacked healing skills. Finally, there was Timbersaw, whose Reactive Armor’s regeneration was buffed in 7.20, where Holy Locket seemed like an ideal fit with its stats, magic resistance, and regeneration.
In practice, however, the item has proven lackluster in several aspects. In its use as a support item—amplifying healing for your team—consider its price point, 2650 gold, and the alternative items you could buy, such as Force Staff, Eul’s Scepter, Rod of Atos, or Glimmer Cape. Even on Dazzle, one of the meta’s top heroes, the item has been omitted among professional teams in both support and core roles. Matumbaman on Team Liquid will often transition from Guardian Greaves into Solar Crest or Hex, and Forev on J.Storm tends to move into Force Staff. These all provide utility that’s arguably better for your team than the regeneration from Holy Locket. The saving grace for Locket then might be its efficiency as a big stick of stats.
But being a good value item might not be good enough in this meta. Holy Locket exists in an awkward space as a transitional early to mid-game item, which is currently occupied by stacking multiple Wraith Bands, Bracers, or Null Talismans. Timbersaw, for example, could transition from Bracers into Eul’s or build towards a Lotus Orb or Bloodstone. These items help mitigate either his mana issues or his weaknesses against silences. The same item timing awkwardness runs the same for Huskar, who transitions from Bracers into core items of Armlet, BKB, Halberd, or Pike.
As with most new heroes and items in Dota, they don't always stick their landing. Holy Locket is a good item on paper, but not yet in practice, which means it could be a few tweaks away from being overpowered.
Kaya, since its introduction, has been an underwhelming, with Storm Spirit being the only hero who built it as a core item. Patch 7.20 introduced Yasha and Kaya and Kaya and Sange and opened up a few interesting new builds.
With movespeed now being percentage based, the recourse for slow heroes to catchup on speed is the Yasha component, which adds a constant +25 on its own and +35 when built into its next tier item. Or you can just build it on Skywrath Mage and speedboat around the map.
The other valuable stat for heroes building into Y&K is its attack speed bonus. Storm Spirit, who lost his attack speed from Power Treads, sorely needs to makeup for it. And then there’s [hero-outworld-devourer], whose Arcane Orb scales with his mana pool and attack speed.
Na’Vi takes down PSG.LGD at MegafonY&K has given reason for Intelligence heroes to consider Kaya, more than it has for Agility heroes building Yasha, when Manta Style or S&Y is out there. There are some hybrid Agility, magic damage dealers, such as Shadow Fiend and Venomancer that can make use of Y&K. But the Kaya component here isn’t as useful as Yasha is for Int heroes. They don’t need the manaloss reduction, and if Venomancer wanted to deal more magic damage, there are more impactful alternatives in Aghanim’s Scepter and Veil of Discord.
As for Kaya and Sange, it has been more niche than its counterpart, built at nearly half the rate as Y&K. If you built Kaya, and you don’t want a Yasha, then you’ll probably will build this item. Zeus, Skywrath Mage, or even Ancient Apparition might build into it, even for its slight boost to the Kaya component. Where the item can be interesting is on tanky heroes like Timbersaw, Ogre Magi, and Bristleback, depending on how much you value Status Resistance. But like with Holy Locket, K&S here might not provide enough utility at a 4k price point to be part of their item builds.
As support player it's feel so hard to afford Holy Locket, even if we have enough money to buy it, feels like there is much better other item than this item
Why get holy locket when urn of shadows exists for a third the price?
Третий мазафака
"Kaya component here isn’t as useful as Yasha is for Int heroes" rly how many int heros was building yasha b4 7.20? now with the new nulls (3% amp) you can stack it with kaya to get even more, so that phase is wrong for int heroes kaya>yasha but for agis like SF/Venom its yasha>kaya
Add kaya to Octarine Core instead of Mystic Staff. Lets see how bad it can go.
I find this kind of item to be extremely interesting as it is an item for heroes that rely less on active spells and more on being walking piles of stats. Heart has been in the game for years as a way to make tankibois more tanky, and of course we have had damage deal items as well, but I like how this sort of fills the gaps in between. I wouldn't be averse to even more specialized build options with the swords either. Dual kayas, dual yashas, dual sanges, and of course, the SYK. They probably would be heavily favored though, and honestly, is there even one hero that would make good use out of having all three?
@MM.Ugh Brock Hall
Morphling comes to mind to use SYK
holy locket is an item with no progression(no upgrades or combination to be a new item), it is expensive and for self only(its benefits). it would be great if the locket changes its recipe into all basic item that can be disassemble for future purposes for both support and cores also it may be combined with mekansm like the guardian greeves but other effects maybe heal amp for all allies in 1200 radius. for next updates of dota pls :D
Finally, there was Timbersaw, whose Reactive Armor’s regeneration was buffed in 7.20
I strongly disagree with this and must say it's actually a nerf because hp regen in 7.20 doesn't get multiplied by strength.
Lvl 7 timber's got roughly 35 strength (he is level seven because there is the change the most significant)
35 strength meant in 7.19 35*0,6875% health regen amp, which equals to 24,0625% hp regen amp.
Previously you got 1,45hp regen from one stack amplified by 24,0625 = all of a sudden it's 1,8 rounded hp regen.
And I'm not even taking into account timber is gonna have more strength later on.
Now you get 1,6 hp regen from one stack no matter what.
It was a nerf.
Tr4$h Locket
I was owning in the beginning of a match as a pos. 5 Dazzle and immediately lost after I bought it >:
Make it give +5 HP Regen, +4 Mana Regen and optionally +300 Health
Please IceFrog
holy locket trash
I don't understand. You're saying Holy Locket is trash, but look at the stats on this site. Out of the entire hero pool, only 14 heroes have <50% win rate when building the item. The regen boost is amazing coupled with the magic resistance. Its not the best support item, being so expensive. However, when its on a Huskar with Armlet or a Pudge with maxed flesh heap, the results are insane. Huskar with Holy Locket and Armlet toggled on has his health floating around 67%, and the magic resistance works at nullifying the damage he takes from Burning Spears as well as his ultimate. Pudge appreciates it because it amps his already crazy good regen by 25%, which amps his Flesh Heap regen by an entire skill level. The magic resistance is great on him because it protects him from Rot, and if you also have a headdress, you barely take any damage from Rot while your magic resistance also tanks you up well.
All in all, this article is not supported by the usage stats.
@Qazior
mmmmmmmaybe? I'm not well versed in the hero but I've not known people to buy int items on him outside of maybe a hurricane pike or linkens. I don't see it being particularly bad for sure, but where would it fit in his lineup of items?
You just didn't mention io? Can you stop writing articles and learn basics please?
@Qazior
Why would you build YnK on morphling when SnY is better? The status resistance and hp are really good on morp.
@viznt he is referring to SYK m8
Kaya and Sange is actually very strong on Bristle. It solves his Mana issues (helps him to snowball as well), and gives him damage+tankability.
HL is okay on Doom with a maxed Q, purple goat thing, and 2 stacks of Q. Get GG, Vlads, and HotD to compliment it I guess.
with oracle, i buy locket after urn. it makes ur 3rd skill heal for 550 HP in 1 cast and u can cast more
The locket item is very lackluster. It could be +100% healing at 2k gold and it would still not be broken.
Kaya and Sange are great on Doom, the reduced status resistance on enimies from Sange, along with the reduced mana cost and spell amp on Doom really works wonders.
Wither game
Almost all of the new items are garbage, there are so many more important situational items you need to get before those new items...
@p9^ with an average of like 43% wr, especially at your rank... there’s a reason dazzle is mentioned and not IO
I like YnK on Morph but I'm a memer, so...
@chef Io passively heals, gets more healing items than dazzle. I can argue it benefits io more than dazzle, but I can say Dazzle is only written there because he's Meta. Though, I love dazzle. 'hurrdurrr, i can dismiss you because you're filthy low rank'