Bloodseeker Edges Back Into The Meta
Loading screen by katzeimsack
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 Once that craziness got put to rest, the hero rescinded into irrelevancy in the competitive scene.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.
Junglers can suck it. Proplayers proved.
4 vs 5 for 20 min = ez - 25
Ez to counter, even with a single TP...
JUNGLE IS DEAD!! PUB PLAYER PLEASE GET THIS!!! THERE IS NO WAY TO STAY EFFICIENT IN JUNGLE
ALSO DELETE THESE STUPID 1st and 2nd COMMENTS
Removed. We no longer allow comments like that.
Ha! My TP seriously countered Bloodseeker's Rupture from limiting my movement in that teamfight/gank, I'm so smart.
I get hate for going bloodseeker mid. But it's just so powerful. Having 30 denies at 5 minutes, and almost 2 full levels ahead of the enemy mid, is hilarious.
U can't tp when u are eulsd
When in doubt, I always use Bloodseeker. Strong carry with a strong early game; nc laning, great ganking capabilities and can easily retreat to the jungle in times of need.
THIRST!
I hate junglers in pubs, in general. That means a lane gets destroyed and that person has no where to retreat to because you are soaking up the farm in the jungle.
why is junglers in nowadays patch no longer strong?
i mean the percentage of heroes playing in jungle decrease, can anyone tell why is it so
i believe the jungle give less exp and gold as well after 7.06....thus only heroes who can clear it fast at lvl 1 like an axe (maybe) or atleast can summon or control creeps to tank for them can only be considered viable (like chen or enigma) as the neutrals spawn every minute now. The usual pub junglers like legion and lifestealer are extremely inefficient junglers because they cant tank a stacked camp at level 1 and its not possible to even clear a medium camp for any of the jungler before the 01:00 min mark.To be efficient jungler have to stack the camp they start with at 00:54 (or the timing according to the camp they are jungling) and thus making my above explaination reasonable.
And it is really irritating to see when the jungler like lc starting with the small and then the hard camp near the safelane to farm because that would be simplest camp to take down for them but it leaves the support starving for exp and gold because now he cant pull and neither can leech exp from the carry.Then they cry for wards and say "noob support" without realizing that they fucked up the game themselves at the beginning.If the support leeches exp from the carry then there are two heroes who will have low farm and levels in the team thus making it easy for the other carry to snowball by either killing the support or carry when they are a little off position.Thus the game ends up as loss and the jungler wont even realize its his fault to begin with.
@Akashi Seijuro you're preaching to the choir and there have been articles that have touched on this very principle. Jungle isn't dead, though. It's just dead for the first 7 minutes or so. The game is really aggressive right now, but a shift in meta heroes could prove to utilize the jungle effectively. The game map hasn't ever been better for the likes of luna and antimage, but they just can't get a spot in the meta.
@eggs love the mini rant near the end on junglers. If the balance patch didn't make it clear that lvl 1 jungling is bad, the statistics won't help either though. Keep waving that banner though, some of us are listening haha.
Blood at lv 1 is strong enough to take med jungle creep, and he can jungle without distrubing the small creep used to creep pull. In my case, as soon as I reach lv 6, I will roam to spill opponent blood, literally. Maybe the most mistake that people do is keep farming jungle until they get the item, which I think is wrong. Like clinkz, blood is better farming enemy hero as soon as the ulti up. Very strong in first 20 min, but yeah, still need a harder carry in case the game drags on
best part of tis blog is the meme
Guys dont make excuses to jungle just dont do it and the worse thing ever is when the jungler is flaming everyone for losing their lanes i mean what are you even thinking? you made us play 4v5 they have a roamer while we have a jungler oh and dont forget the games a person goes jungle against roamer that can easily kill him when he's low hp cause guess what its not a solo game in the jungler either
hero with high hp regen and lifesteal can easily become a jungler from the frist minute i think, with talon & tango they can beat hard camp at lv 1 and they don't need the small camp because of low xp and gold and also the support won't be able to pull the lane creep. the main problem is, the jungler won't get out from the jungle to help the lane if needed. wraith king wraithfire blast, lifestealer open wounds, dragon knight dragon tail and breathe fire can help the other to run away or to help the carry to get some kills. jungler always forget about tp and wards, both items can counter gank (immediately tp back to base / tp to tower to help the other runaway and provide vision so the team know there will be a gank and play safe). i think that jungle is the safe way for some hero to get some item like blink dagger, armlet, midas etc because they can easily get a lot of gold with lower chance being harassed or killed. jungle is not dead, i become a jungler to let the hard carry solo the lane for more gold and xp (but higher chance get killed by the enemy), i expect the solo laner become fat and they expect me to buy the core items in fast so i can help the other to gank. u don't need to clear the camp below .00, u can pull em at 55/56 so the camp stacked. so pls jungler player farm faster and pay attention to the lane and help them if they need it because some jungle type hero can help the other with stuns or slow and your game will be "fine"
the only jungler allowed is enigma
You see that? Despite the explanation given above in the blog and in some of the comments, there will still be walls of text trying to justify level 1 jungling. I wish they removed neutral creeps completely out of the game. I'd rather have no creeps to pull than a jungler farming the small camp at 0:30 and bang my head when the carry does nothing to contest the hard camp stack made for him being farmed by the offlaner. I make the mistake of playing solo support every day of my life.
Blood can be played anywhere.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only person that hates junglers. Junglers lose games
supports control lanes and te early game, supports are the responsable of every single lane won, if you want to have a good transition from early to midgame, and midgame to lategame, 2 supports will be always superior than 1, the jungle spot its a waste of a support hero spot and will most likely loose against any 2 enemy supports that know what they'r doing
bs is weak hero.
Not a huge fan of comparing jungle and lane stats, since as the article mentioned, it is to an extent a hiding place for lower skill players.
I don't think you would take BS mid unless you were confident in your skills with the hero / with a stack of friends. To this end it makes sense that newer/less confident/less skilled players would retreat to the jungle, and would have less wins thanks to their own skills & coordination. These statistics don't really reflect on BS as much as they do pubs at large.
Great hero !!!
i wanna ask sth.
If i am a jungler, which camp should i hit first and which one should i stack? Thanks
@lase
I feel like that argument ignores about half of the stats provided for the argument though. Even so, the logic you use says that players that are good with the hero will step out of the jungle where bad players will flock to the jungle. That still supports the argument because more games are won outside the jungle, where the good players are. You have to assume that the good players are in lane because they know the hero and therefore know it's more powerful in lane.
@n4n4
If you are jungling go for the medium camps that are closest to the small near the lane for both radiant and dire.You can farm them easily and probably stack and clear them, then i move onto the nearest hard camp and farm that.......and move in a pattern that i return to the same camp again without missing a possible stack (provided i can take it as there would be no shrine till 5 min in the game)
Jungle bs is not strong as 2 years ago. But, it is still enough to beat the uncoordinated team. Especially, in the normal pub. But, this hero has limitation. So, dont stay in jungle too long. U have to try the gank enemy core when u have ulti. This hero is kind of anti core hero. Very strong at mid game but, he get weak as time flow. The way u can win is decrease potential of enemy core by constant ganking.
great hero. is my favorite
I've jungled Troll and went 14-1. And I could clear the medium camp before the 1:00 mark.
Ayy Lmao
2 days ago
Ez to counter, even with a single TP...
BS to not wait 45 minutes for Bash; get early bash and echo saber;
I see alot of counter arguments saying "oh hero X can still clear camp Y at lvl Z"... Yes idiot but:
1. camp Y still gives 25% less gold/exp
2. the change to deny mechanics further boosting the dominant side in a 2v1 lane
3. death of roaming
Jungle and roam is dead, 2-1-2 laning phasing is current meta regardless of hero picks.
^ roam is dead wat?????
IM DYING XD
roam is dead my ass.
do you know mk and treant?
oke tarzan , u guys talk about jungle
then u can told me
why Chen go to jungle
why Enigma go to jungle
why trilane CM sometimes do jungling with skill 2
why pro offlaner go to jungle if solo lane (hard lane) dangerous
why pro offlaner sometimes buy iron talon for jungling
why batrider go to jungle if he has a hard time at hard lane
jungle is mountain of gold if u can do it effectively
jungle fast -> lv 6 ulti up -> gank , kill hero -> repeat
maybe u guys talk about
afk farming jungler 25 minutes
or no has TP jungler to help war near tower
@imagination - if BS was weak why would DotaBuff decide to do the article? Look at the last few patch notes and you will see why he can be powerful (buffs to S+Y twice, Echo Sabre etc.)
@Mantis - that's true... except if the BS has Euls/disable or the enemy's TP is on CD (bear in mind rupture is 60s as opposed to TP which is 80s) and although rupture is used for the kill, just pushing the enemy hero out of the lane (especially say safe-lane carry) can slow their progression and creates space to potentially take the enemy tower.
As any hero is, BS is situational and is a definite 'no no' if you intend to jungle and they have an invis. roamer or good roamer in general (careful wards help this). Personally, with the buffs to S+Y and to Echo sabre, BS is a viable option, especially early on if you combine with an Orb of Venow for enemy slow and a windlace for the added movement speed (+phase (again my preference)). With Ags his crowd control on the supports is a real pain (excluding the damage dealt by it) let alone his chasing power.
As a final note, if you are still in the Jungle as BS at lv 6 onwards, then you're doing it wrong as 'hero kills >>> jungle' for him.
China and SEA lesser stage? Gtfo they had more quality games than NA or SA during TI Quals..what kind of stage do you call that then?
IDK what you guys are talking about, go jungle bloodseeker, 13-14 min dagon ez game, then get shadowblade, e-blade,aether lens, refresher. ez 2.5-3k dmg nuke on 2 heroes instantly. someone tell me how thats balanced.
Remember to keep your post friendly and within the
dear junglers: There's a game called LoL where jungle is an actual role (I think). Go play it and stop ruining dota 2 games plz. Even enigma is played as an offlaner in the pro scene to avoid the 4v5 early game. Pros make a living from this, they know what they're doing
Finally I met someone who hate jungle.. Lol