Dota 2 version 7.xx has brought about a monumental change for all fans of the iconic MOBA game which was received with mix criticisms by its community. But weeks following its launch, players have now begun to adapt on the new gameplay experience. One of the heroes that have gone a major overhaul is Techies which was first seen to be a nerf but was in actuality, a huge boost to the hero's arsenal. And for the first time since its release, Techies has now reached a new milestone for this week by having >50% win rate worldwide. So what exactly caused this significant change? Let's find out.
Techies Rework
The main changes on Techies are his three primary abilities -Proximity Mines, Stasis Trap and Blast Off. These changes made Techies highly effective in most compositions during the laning phase. Here's the reason why Techies now has a high win rate as compared to his previous version:
Changes in Mine - Land Mine was replaced by a new ability called Proximity Mine which can't be seen with True Sight but can be detected once the hero is within 400 AoE of the mine's proximity. These Mines cannot be stacked on top of each other and so Techies will have to scatter these mines across the map. The good news, however, is that, it deals full damage within its blast radius unlike before where the damage lessens the farther the target is from the initial blast.
Stasis Trap - Stasis no longer stuns nearby targets but instead, causes them to be rooted in place. This means that the enemy can still cast abilities, attack (if within range), etc. At first, many were thinking, this is a huge nerf! But with the rework on root effects in patch 7.00, it proved to be very potent during team fights as root now disables a myriad of escape and movement abilities.
Blast Off! - The rework on the hero's Suicide Squad Attack was seen to be the major turning point of the hero as the skill now deals significantly high amount of damage whilst still keeping Techies alive, well, barely as the ability reduces the HP of the caster by 50%. The cost may be great but the effect is highly potent as it silences and deals massive damage within the targeted area. This skill alone makes Techies very effective during the early laning stage - disabling defensive spells of supports while nuking down the carry.
The main strength of the hero stems from its great laning stage where it can now win against matchups which he wasn't capable of doing so in the previous versions. Techies can also serve as both roaming supp, and as an offlaner. According to Dotabuff, the best matchups for techies are Riki, Weaver, Morph and Shadow Fiend - all of which are very popular in the current meta.
To sum it up, Techies is now very viable in the meta and has seen a surge in pick rate across all MMR brackets. If you want to shut down popular heroes that was mentioned earlier, then you may want to pick this small yet amazing hero.
