Dota 2 has always been distinguished by the flexibility of the meta, but over the past six months a caste of heroes has appeared in it, which professional players seem to have forgotten about. One of these characters is the skeleton archer Clinkz. We studied Dotabuff and patches released this season to understand the problems of this hero.
According to Dotabuff, Clinkz was unclaimed in six of the nine largest tournaments of the season. At three championships, he appeared only in a couple of matches, and basically it was tournaments with a lot of game series like MDL Chengdu Major or DreamLeague Leipzig Major.
Clinkz was almost never the hero of the first draft stage. This is a rather fragile and specific character that can reveal itself well in an aggressive game with early dominance on the map. Most often, he was taken to the last peaks if he was well suited against the setup of the opponent.
On the The international 2019 in Shanghai, Clinkz played only seven matches (with a winrate of 28.57%) and became one of the tournament’s most unpopular heroes. In November 2019, the global patch 7.23 was released, which greatly changed the game, including artifacts and heroes.
Clinkz changes in patch 7.23:
- Base attack range reduced from 650 to 625
- Skeleton Walk: now when leaving invisibility, attack speed increases by 70/100/130/160. This acceleration lasts 4 seconds.
- Strafe has been replaced by Death Pact: the hero absorbs an enemy creature, a neutral 3/4/5/6 level creature, or skeleton. Increases maximum health by 200/300/400/500. Hero attacks for 3 seconds reduce the target’s armor by 2/3/4/5. For killing an enemy hero, this effect gives a constant +5 damage, and the cooldown of an ability is reset. Duration: 55 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds. Cast Range: 900. Mana Cost: 60.
- Burning Army: now skeletons do not cause 80/100/120% of the hero’s base damage, but 24/26/28% of his total damage.
- Level 20 Talent: “+16 Health Per Second” has been replaced by “+350 Death Pact Health.”
- Level 25 Talent: “+4 Seconds to the duration of Strafe ”is replaced by“ +4 sec. Skeleton Walk’s attack acceleration. ”
Despite such global changes, they did not help Clinkz return to the meta. Professional players still ignored the hero in tournaments.
In update 7.23c, the skeleton archer was enhanced with the Death Pact ability – health gain was increased from 200/300/400/500 to 250/350/450/550. In patch 7.24, they raised the base damage from Burning Army to 28%, and in update 7.25 this figure increased to 30%. In addition, developers removed the limit on the maximum level of neutral creeps for Death Pact. As time has shown, these attempts by Valve to strengthen Clinkz did not produce any particular results – in the framework of the professional scene, the hero remains at the back of the meta.
“Clinkz is bad against current cows – Slark, Terrorblade, Phantom Lancer. He is also very weak in the macro game, because he can not push the lines. Although the current patch is the best for him, there are still too many heroes who are good against Clinkz. There are corny more effective heroes than this. ”
Until recently, Clinkz’s position in user matches could not be called rosy, but in patch 7.26a the situation changed dramatically. The developers found a way to draw attention to the character, adding damage to the ability of Searing Arrows.
Clinkz changes in patch 7.26a:
- Searing Arrows damage increased from 20/30/40/50 to 30/40/50/60.
- Cost increased from 6/8/10/12 to 9/10/11/12.
From the Dotabuff charts, you can see how this update affected the character’s position in the ladder. In just a week, the Clinkz win rate grew by 5%, and the hero’s popularity doubled.
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Infographic: dotabuff.com/heroes/clinkz/trends
However, it is too early to talk about the return of Clinkz to the professional scene. Judging by the intermediate statistics Epic Prime League Season 1 and WePlay! Pushka League Season 1 Division 1, the hero is still not in great demand.
“Now, at a high rating, Clinkz are taken to matchup against Beastmaster, sometimes they are taken to the mid, and often I see him in fourth position. He clearly became a practical hero. In one of the matches on the BTS SEA, the Fnatic team tried to take Clinkz to the “five”. Although it didn’t really work out, it seemed to me then that the problem was not in the hero at all. I think Clinkz has every chance to appear as a prepared strategy at some tournament. ”
Professionals periodically play Clinkz in matchmaking. For example, two-time champion of The International Topias Topson Taavitsainen several times showed this hero on the center line. The Finnish cybersportsman is known for his non-standard pool of heroes, as well as for innovative assemblies of artifacts. Perhaps it is from his filing at the top level that the mod on Clinkz will return.
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