mostly against heroes with lowcooldown low manacost spells like bristleback
when ur against a trilane
when ur playing support or have hero that requires more mana than u have with ur small mana pool
when u want to do big plays with it
thats about it
quick cast is preference thing i would never use one myself since im used to w3 dota mechanics and this is just new thing that im not willing to try
icefrog nerfs and boost heroes once in a while and people adapt find broken heroes and abuse them for rest of the patch so basicly there will always be imbalanced heroes unless something magical happens
Get magic stick if you're against heroes who cast a lot of spells. Examples: Zeus, Bristle, Skywrath, Leshrac, Undying, Veno (ward build), storm and even pa. Also don't rush wand too fast. A stick with two branches is usually good enough until you need more space for other items.
1) anytime is good 225 mana and health burst is sometimes deciding u dead or not.
2) Tiny is underrated he can't fight with IO on his side. but with tiny + troll combo it just melt tower like nutella
3) never used it
4) dunno ask icefrog. never know what in his fucking minds
Okay but with stick you already get 10 charges, wand is a little bit of a waste imo atm, like when i would make it into a wand i'd instead be buying boots, building for treads, and buying farm/team items. Unless it's against bristle it's like the only hero i can see with as much spammability that youll ever (typically) not already die past a certain point of casted spells.
Tiny is just good in every phase of the game imo
quickcast seems to work well for me with some thigns. rn ive found luck just keeping q & w quick and the rest normal. also makes me more focused for some reason
Magic Wand is absolutely core must have item for all heroes. +4 to all stats and some regen for 465 gold is just too efficient.
Stick/Wand gets a little better if you have treads btw. If you're running away you can switch to agi/int, pop wand, then switch back to strength to get some extra health from it, or more mana to cast a spell you couldn't. It can be done pretty fast, so you dont take extra damage from an incoming attack or something.
You can of course do the same with dropping items, but in midfights you don't wanna do that.
1) when ur lane enmy spams spells (mostly viable for offlaners), or you need instant mana boost playing heroes like WK.
2) nah. people pick him quite rarely in pubs, and hes not awesome without wisp, so its reasonable.
3) for certain heroes it is a must (meepo, pudge, lion, etc.), for others it's up to you. beware it will take time to get used to quickcast - i fucked up a lot of nyx combos when I switched to quickcast.
4) Patches are aimed to make everything ideally balanced, but it's so difficult that we can just call it impossible - here are too many factors that depend on each other, and once you introduce a liiiiitle change into 1 item, everything goes to hell - old meta becomes past, suddenly other heroes become strong, and sometimes it takes a while to understand why this happened, even post factum.
if you already play 300 + you will experience your life is saved cus magic wand, and you snowball then win
Buy it on all hero
if you support, only stick is fine
alright I'll give wand more of a shot, it's just it would be nice if there was some other added benefit to wand, like even 1 more stat plus. Most upgradable stat items give a bonus whenever upped
It costs less than 500 gold, it gives you already +4 allstats, and it pretty much ensures a long early teamfight will go on your favor. It only seems useless on backward ass brackets where people farm for 40 minutes before there's any action but it's god tier anywhere else
1 always on supports, sometimes on carries. Stick on carries more common against bristle etc, on mids vs storm also
2 tinys winrate will remain shit because people have no clue how to play him (bottle treads blink aghs)
3 idk why you would ever want to use quickcast on most heroes, seems worse than useless
4 valves goal is ultimately to shift the meta to make dota more of a spectator sport. In the short term they will nerf the op heroes of every patch and buff the worst heroes
On top of what everyone else has said (against BB, Zeus, etc), I recently learnt (sadly, from experience) that it's a tremendously beneficial item to get against DoT heroes like Venom, Viper. With DoT, it's impossible to regenerate over time. You NEED a burst heal to survive. Wand is extremely good for that.
quickcast like i said it makes me more focused and better at learning to just go for a play and being accurate. as opposed to maybe being too hesitant and then than .5 seconds later the opening isnt there.
i still think tiny is underrated and not played in higher skill matches but should be.
Magic wand is generaly good on almost any hero in any game early and mid game - eventually it has to be replaced as you get better items and don't have room.
But the only question is whether you want to start getting charges immediately (in which case get magic stick right away against spell spammers in the lane) or if you won't face spell spammers just get stats and make wand later.
Even if you are a carry hero, that extra mana to cast one more spell will often win a fight, or to live through that one last nuke ... magic wand is very strong item and costs almost nothing.
The big value in magic wand comes from the surprise effect. Suddenly having 255 more hp/mp than the enemy expected is what causes them to overextend and gets them killed while you live.
Dota 2 wiki recommends getting wand on literally ALL heroes. And it is the 7th most popular item choice with 18% of heroes in all pub dota games still having it at the end of a game. Far more purchased it earlier and then traded it in. I don't get wand or stick if I am on a hero that truly farms solo most of the early and mid game and I don't face spammers in-lane. It's not always the best choice, but probably 75% of heroes and lane situations magic wand is great and its never really bad unless you afk jungle.
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The meta shifts each patch, and also during patches in smaller amounts. Valve buffs heroes that are weak and nerfs those that are strong, but with 110 heroes its never possible to get them all really perfectly even. Some will be slightly too strong or too weak with each adjustment and people will naturally take advantage of it.
Keep in mind that Valve balances the game for the pros so in pubs heroes that are hard to play are much weaker, especially the lower MMR goes. The power of the most difficult heroes is not usable to most ordinary players so their pub winrates are very low. But they may actually continue to get nerfs if their pro winrates/ pick rates/ ban rates are too high.
I hope that DOTABUFF PLUS will at some point be able to provide a division of the stats on heroes so that you can see how the higher MMR games conform more to pro game balance and meta. Also, there are times when a new build or strat is developed by top MMR pubs and appears a few weeks later in pro tournaments. Usually demonstration in a pro game leading to pub use is the natural path, but there is also the reverse. People practice and test these things before pros try them.
"The big value in magic wand comes from the surprise effect. Suddenly having 255 more hp/mp than the enemy expected is what causes them to overextend and gets them killed while you live."
That is a good point, especially at my skill bracket people aren't checking my hero to see how many stick charges I have.
I like the last idea as well for sure.
does wand count charges from attack modifying abilities like viper's, clinkz', huskar's, enchantress'?
No, wand only consider spells, but Orb/UAM is never considered a spell. His idea is, if you are taking damage over time, you won't be regenerating with other items like Tango (too slow), or Salve (will be cancelled the moment another damage tick comes in). The burst heal from Magic Wand will do since people would overextend just to finish you while being surprised that you lived.
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1) When, if ever, is it a good idea to get a magic wand? I use to avoid magic stack/wand altogether until really this last week in 10 v 10, but I am starting to see value in laning with a stick and to hold place til 5 slot
2) Is Tiny underrated or is it just me?
3) Is quickcast valuable for all heroes and not just Meepo?
4) Does the community/Valve want to create newer metas each patch or is the goal to create a general equality in hero pool, at least at 'face' value?