General DiscussionWhy isnt Skywrath Mage used in competative enviroment?

Couse he dies with one stun. And if you rush bkb on him, he sucks. If you make pipe, he sucks. If you make bkb, he sucks. If you make blade mail ( my favorite ) he becomes tenchies .

Easily outlaned. Outfarmed. And his ulti is totaly garbage. Come on, whos going to stay in one place for that long (w/o near allied heroes ). Altought he can be good pub stomper, due to above things are rarely seen in pubs

He beats mosts mid (doenst get outlaned at all) he has build in slow in his second skill hence his ulti can do ALOT of dmg otherwise you can get Rod of Atos for the slow. The bkb argument you can make vs any int mid (puck, storm, QoP) so I dont even count is as an argument.. The blademail+stun are completly correct but otherwise he would be totally overpowered.

I am still convinced that if you gave this hero to Super, s4 or Resolution they would crush their opponents hard.

I don't really watch competitive games but I think these may be some reasons:

- Super squishy
- Everything he does is single targeted
- Really lousy in most teamfights
- Extremely unreliable ulti if the other team knows what they are doing (and since we are talking about pros...)
- No hard disable
- Can't really support, needs items, it's extremely risky to prioritize farm for him because he can be countered by reasons already stated by I like to suport, fuck me...

No matter what you say, people will argue against you in Dotabuff.

When I said Spiritbreaker would 100% receieve a nerf, I got told off as a noob despite giving justifications. He got nerfed.

When I said DP was viable mid and was strong against many of the popular meta heroes and should be used more, I got told off as an idiot who didn't know better. She soon after become a powerful pick.

People in dotabuff tend to be meta-based and inflexible in their thinking. They justify their arguments by giving specific scenarios where the hero you are talking about fails.

So you can just deal with it and be happy if your prediction comes true, i.e. Skywrath entering the meta.

Well, whenever I play Skywrath, the enemy picks Pugna

for those of you who don't understand what I'm saying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC44-8mU5kE

@noob I know how you feel m8

Couple years ago before visage became 1st pick, I was trying to tell people hey guys this character has potential to become the king of trilanes and supports, People told me I was a moron.

I vouched for OD i said so many times this guy is unstoppable mid at a professional level, I got raged saying he's so easy to gank his skill cap is too high blah blah, Sure enough 6 months later he became 1st pick material before nerfing.

He is ok. .1 cast point, average, high-average first 3 spells, long range slow, but his ult is just garbage. One of the worst in the game. Yes, it is accompanied by a quick cast point and high range, but it is like a shitty laguna blade/finger in that it does about the same damage, with potential to miss much or all of it, and chance to divide and hurt other targets instead of the intended. That along with an insultingly high mana cost.

I'm not sure if he's underpowered or balanced, but he's certainly not overpowered.

Skywrath is another pick that I just don't comprehend why it isn't in the current meta. The spirits(well 2 of them...) are seen in most games atm and silences shut them all down pretty hard. I get that orchid/vyse can achieve the same goal, but those are items you could use to just threaten them even more with, or just not have to build in the first place.

The problem is that skywrath instantly dies to anything. Like if storm sees a skywrath, sky is gonna die in about 1 second.

squishy, no disable, easy to gank, too greedy to be a support

I think at least one aspect of it is forcestaff counters the ultimate really hardcore even when it's used in a combo with CC. That same item counters his slow initiation.

Cause there are other good nukers with a better skillset and more survivability, specially for teamfights, like QoP (as squishy as Sky but you can escape most times if your reaction is good) or Invoker.

He has no armor and dies easily from disables/stuns.

He needs a lot of farm to be an effective ganker.

However, when you snowball on him, it's so fun because his spells have low cooldowns.

They tried and didn't work out well enough to keep playing him. simple as that.

Simply put. He is very level dependent. Slot him as a support, he becomes underlvled, underwhelming dmg output with average disables and poor-average roaming. Slot him as a solo mid, sure you can win your lane albeit not to OD esque levels with your low base dmg..but he still needs set-ups in order to secure kills. Forcing your supports/off-lane to have to set-up kills for your solo mid puts alot pressure on them to have a measurable impact in the early-mid game.

Whilst he may be viable in a line-up with good set-up abilities, split pushing more often than not > early-mid game set-ups since they require multiple heroes to focus

I meant to play him as a mid hero for a early game level line up.
@Minazuki Sora If storm sees skywarth the skywrath can instantsilence him (no animation) and just straigtup kill him with second skill+ulti. At no point can a storm lane vs a skywarth.
He is easly ganked but thats when you pick defensive supports like venge on naga who can save him and just provide disable. He can dishout all the dmg and with a 3 sek entange/stun he WILL kill most heros if he is on pair with levels.
@[Lk].Zano Everything storm does is singletarget aswell and he is viable.
@Luxon I have even seen sniper (I think PR played him vs cloud9) bu I have never seen skywarth mage. and THE SNIPER CRUSHED THEM
Although all of you give reasonable answers none of them really convince me. I agree that in any team fight everyone would try to focus him down but with good positioning + blink dagger/forcestaff I belive SW would still prevail in most situations. And I think many of you underestimate how good his silence is. At level 4 it provides 6 sek silence and 36% amplification dmg, considering the range its an amazing skill.

he is used rarely as a counter pick to puck. Primary reason is there are better mids, and he doesn't has a reliable stun or slow as a support.

I love people who make 50 predictions then get one right and believe they are fucking psychic

I would rather put sky in lane with some good disable ( vs, naga, alche, sd ) , then to let him mid. Smoke gank = dead sky ( no matter who plays him )

Sniper has op range, and annoying skills. ( look it like trax, position is the key ). On the other hand why is sky going to do? Silence, slow and use ulti ( which 90 % players will evade )

I agree really on this with Sampson. Everyone told you that he has like million problems, and you keep talking about his silence. What happens when someone silence him?

@[Lk].Zano Everything storm does is singletarget aswell and he is viable.

Hum...no? The only single target thing about Storm is his vortex. Everything else is AoE, small for sure, but more difficult to dodge than Skywrath's Concussion and Storm is nowhere near as vulnerable.

SKywrath is almost always picked with clockwerk. Usually as a support not a mid. He's had 5 games this month.

Everyone told me 1 problem which is the same aka he is easy to gank because he is squishy which is true but its also true of many mids and its not like every hero doenst have some drawbacks I just think his drawbacks donest justify him never being picked up esp. with combination of clockwerk.

@Zano The second skill for SW is also small AOE and so is his ulti so your argument is invalid

@ESP Wink "squishy, no disable, easy to gank, too greedy to be a support"

Silencer, Lich, AA, Visage. (All easy to gank, w/o disables and squishy as fuck in the laning phase)

Most of the people here will tell you that it's cuz Sky is squishy. Those are the same people that say "x hero is not OP just gank him early on and dont let him get farm" for ANY hero.

The only reason Skywrath isnt seen much in comp games is cuz the current meta does not suit him as he focuses on nuking and silencing. He is a very situational pick. Sometimes people pick Skywrath against Anti Mage/Storm. Clock +Skywrath is common in pubs. Some heroes just aren't bad, it's that there are other heroes better suited to the general competitive playstyle. The 'he needs levels' argument is also very valid. Some very strong supports like Warlock are never picked cuz they heavily need levels.

sky works as a 4 position
AA from virtus pro used to play him a lot

he is squishy, yeah, but one good silence is enough for locking a hero down (like storm and qop)
6 seconds and a damage amplify, davai davai

She falls off after everybody has tons of damage. Sure her nukes hurt alot early stages from 6-11. But one people get 2k HP or crit/lifesteal items it just tickles. I mean you can burst 300-500 on spells. They crit every other attack or do 1000+ AOE like ES/Warlock.

She's like a snowball hero like venomancer, NS, Silencer, CM. If you don't get kills or protect your carry it's over late game.