Enchantress has a strong ultimate, so it's a good idea to build around it with items like hurricane pike and aghs, it's also a good idea to tank up with Enchantress because untouchable and her heal are so strong. Chen is more item independent so you just focus more on group pushing items.
Both TA and PA get deso because of their high physical damage. TA already has a minus armor ability which stacks nicely with deso, and meld bonus damage is physical and not effected by crits, lifesteal etc (same logic for getting deso on Clinkz). Psi blades damage is also based on how much damage the primary target takes, so reducing their armor also increases psi damage. PA is just pure physical damage and you want to burst people down as much as possible.
TA is also generally a better laner and farmer than PA. Refraction is the key to making TA a good laner that makes her dangerous and survivable, while also very independent in the early game. TA also can't really do much to help get kills early game, whereas PA can with her blink and slow with the help of supports, making her a much more viable safe laner than TA.
TA can also take ancient stacks and nuke waves pretty quickly, whereas PA needs a battle fury to do all that, which is one of the reasons she's seen as a better hero in higher brackets where people know how to farm.
1: Both can be mek carrires, it's just that chen is in some ways like undying - useless in late game (aghs made it much better but still in very long games chen's effectivness is very limited) while enchantrees is super scary with some items, so you don't necessarily wanna end the game around 25-35min.
The answer to second question lies in first, but on top of it enchantrees can be played as offlaner, so picking her doesn't reaveal nearly as much as picking chen (when you pick chen enemy knows your safelane is gonna be 2 heroes at max, and you gonna try to win lanes and end game as soon as possible)
2: Desolator is pretty much build on heroes that are strong laners, want to snowball, push quite early (don't wanna go super late) and have some sort of deffensive ability. If they have some sort of minus armor and ability to take rosh, it's that much better. Heroes that fit this description are TA, Naix, Weaver, PA, Ursa, Monkey King (in this order i believe).
Ta is played as mid because she can push lane and take runes quite easily, and you really don't want to push safelane just to take runes. Also as mid she can quite easily stack ancients for herself. On top of it she has great lane presence with refraction and psi blades, so she can out farm pretty much any hero without DoT spells. PA on the other hand can be played as both mid and carry. It's just when you play her mid on pubs you often lack some sort of control in fights or spell damage burst other mids provide. But in right pick she is just as good mid as she is carry.
TA is situationally a great pick mostly because of refraction. If you pick her against shadow fiend, invoker, puck or OD mid and you can pretty much get free farm and with some rotations or stacks from support you can get 10-13min deso, get roshan, blink, and pretty much win game by yourself. On the other hand if you get counter picked by veno, silencer , qop or viper, you will get zoned out of a lane, you will have to recover and that's never a position where you wanna be with snowballing heroes (pretty much any hero I listed as deso carry falls behind and you know you are in big big trouble). If you need to farm for like 20minutes to get desolator, enemy team gets roshan and starts pushing you are pretty much useless.
PA is not getting picked much in higher brackets, but she is also a great situational pick. I feel like this patch there is really a lot of carry heroes that shine in certain match ups, and very few that can be played every game. Sure there is tiny that is getting first picked a lot, but since Morphling and Medusa got nerfed, most of other carries are just situational. PL or CK if you are playing against heroes with no real way to deal AoE dmg, AM if you just want to split push, Monkey King or Ursa if you just wanna let your carry dominate offlaner alone and so on. PA also belongs to this category, as she counters some heroes super well (offlane enchantrees being the prime example).
Also I think since the recent undirect nerfs to TA (Less creeps mid, less golds for ancient creeps, harder acces to runes as midlaner, slight buffs to roshans armor) she is more "situational" than PA in the current meta. I really feel like you can only pick TA when she gets ideal mid match-up and enemy needs to have really limited damage over time, when PA can be picked as third or fourth pick when she counters just one or two of enemy heroes.
First of all, thank you so much for all the great answers!
Now, i think i get the general idea on the answer to my questions.
So, from what i read, basically :
1. Chen buys mek because he (1). Wants to end the game early which mek is great at doing so. and (2). He doesn't really need any specific item to start doing something on the map. While ench scales well with items so it's better for her to get other items which suits her more.
2. Ench is usable because she doesn't really reveal your team comp, while chen reveals the general type of heroes and playstyle which your team is going to use (strong and independent laner, fast pusher, some teamfights here and there).
3. Deso is a core on heroes that could burst enemy heroes, have snowball potential, mainly relies on physical damage, with some potential to do rosh early on.
4. TA is usable in mid because she's a strong and independent laner that can't really get outlaned unless the enemy got a specific counter for her which allows the supports to do other stuffs or allows some kill potential if the support(s) decides to rotate to mid. Plus, she have a great rune control (which PA doesn't have) which is a plus score for a mid heroes. While pa doesn't need a specific hero to deal with her which makes the support sometimes needs to babysit mid.
One other thing i think when i read the answers is that mid only relies on ancient stack and some near camps to farm, while safelane carries generally can farm anywhere they want. (Not sure if this is true, please correct me if i'm wrong.)
5. Related to the previous answer, TA is a situationally great pick because she can destroy the lane if she's not countered. And i guess i was wrong about PA being generally bad. So, PA is also situationally great when she can counter enemy core (and not get countered too much?).
Please correct me if i get something wrong from my understanding.
Once again, thank you very much for all the very helpful answers!
That desolator list is trash.
It wud go TA, clinx, lifestealer, pa
Other heroes can build it situationally like weaver, Ursa, lycan, mk.
Also the main difference between ench and Chen is that ench doesn't rely nearly as much on creeps as Chen, she is a way stronger laner, and her ultimate is maybe 3 billion times better.
Please sign in to post comments.
As my name suggest, i'm a scrub and i got a lot to learn. And as the title suggest, my question this time is difference between similar heroes, situations to pick them, their itemization, and why they're good (or not good) in the meta.
1. Chen and Enchantrees
Similarities : Both can control creeps, Both can pressure lanes, Both can heal (Nature Attendants / Hand of God + Test of Faith), Both can slow enemies (Nature Attendants / Penitence), Both have nukes (Impetus / Penitence + Test of Faith).
Differences : Enchantrees is more offensive since impetus is spammable, while chen is more defensive with double heal.
Question :
-Why chen can be a mek carrier while ench can't?
-(As far as i know), Ench is good on the meta while chen isn't picked much. Why? They're pretty similar.
2. Templar Assasin and Phantom Assasin
Similarities : Both can pressure their opposing laner, Both have a mid game powerspike, Both aren't really a late game hero, Both can burst any squishy heroes, Both have desolator as their core item.
Differences : TA needs blink dagger, PA doesn't (Presumably because PA already have her own blink). TA is more survivable against nukes (which is mostly magic damage), while PA is more survivable against physical damage. TA can give some vision control with psionic traps, while PA can't.
Question:
-Why do they both needs deso as their core item?
-Why is TA always played as mid laner, while PA is mostly a safe laner?
-Why TA is situationally a great pick, while PA (as far as i know) is generally a bad hero to play in higher MMR games?
That's probably all for now. There's more that i wanna ask about, but it's probably too much if i ask them all at once.
Thank you for reading this long question of mine. I hope it won't bother you too much :D